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JOHN JOHNSTON. 



MRS. JOHN JOHNSTON. 






^ ' 



MUS. ilKXKV IC. SCUOULCHAFT. 



JOHN McDOUGALL JOHNSTON. 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE 'SOO." 



305 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE ^'SOO. 



BY C. IT. CHAPMAN.* 



Compiling sTuh records of the Johnston family as limited time and space would 
permit, the writer has endeavored to preserve and verify the historical correctness 
of events and dates, even at the sacrifice of several good stories. The compilation 
is made largely from the writings of early travelers to the Lake Superior region and 
from some of the v/orks not in general circulation, of Henry R. Schoolcraft, the 
historian, who married the eldest daughter of John Johnston. An intimate acquain- 
tance with John McDougall Johnston, youngest son of John Johnston, and all of the 
son ^ and daughters of John McDougall Johnston, for nearly a quarter of a century, 
has made the compilation of the following pages a work of much pleasure, and 
enabled the writer to correct a number of errors and add a few historical events 
heretofore r.npublished. The following letter from Miss Anna Johnston, grand- 
daughter of John Johnston, is self-explanatory: 

Sailors Encampment, June 5, 1902. 
Mr. Charles H. Chapman, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan: 

Dear Sir: — Mrs. Anthony sent your letter to us, thinking that we could give you 
some information about our aunt, Mrs. Hcniy R. Schoolcraft. She was the third 
child of John Johnston and the eldest daughter, who was born January 31st, 1800, 
and died May 22, 1842, at Niagara, Canada West, we think while on a visit to her 
sister Mrs. McMurray. We have no record of her marriage. She lived at Sault 
Ste. Marie for eleven years after her marriage, and for eight years at Mackinaw 
in the "Old Agency." She was the mother of two children, Janie, who died a few 
years ago in Richmond, Va., and Johnston Schoolcraft, who died some time after 
the civil war. I think he was in the Southern army. We have a photograph of 
Mrs. Schoolcraft taken from a painting, also one of our grandfather taken from 
the painting we have at home. Mrs. Jameson, an English writer was acquainted 
with our people and pictures Mrs. Schoolcraft, "with features decidedly Indian, ac- 
c.'nc slightly foreign, a soft plaintive voice, her language pure and remarkably ele- 
gant, refined, womanly and unaffectedly pious." * * * with regard to our 
grandfather, we have several papers pertaining to his life, which I could not copy 
now, but will send them to Mrs. Anthony so that when you visit DeTour you may 
look them over and copy whatever you may see fit. Hoping that you may get a 
little help v;ith your paper from what I have written, I am. 

Very truly yours, 

ANNA M. JOHNSTON. 



♦Charles H. Chapman was born in the township of Pontiac. Oakland county, Miohigan. 
April 9, 18M. When four weeks of ase his parents moved to Kentucky and rf^f^.^J^^J^^ 
until the fnll of 18^0. when they returned to Michigran and settled on a farm at Elizabeth 
Lake in Waterford township. Oakland county. At the ape of sixteen he left the farrn 
and learned the printer's trade. Tn 1874 he was a reporter on the Sagmaw Courier and 
the Detroit Free Press and in 187.5 was a reporter on Cincinnati Commercal nnd several 
other papers in the southwest. Tn 1876 he established the Pontiac Commercial which he 
published nnfil 1879. when he sold the paper and took charge of the meehanical depart- 
ment of the Western Newspaper Union. Detrou. -nnd nnntinued there until the spring or 
1882 when he went to Sault Ste. Marie and took charge and published the Chippewa 
County News until 1887. when he sold that paper and was elected reerister of deeds of 
Chippewa countv and bepan the study of law and was admitted to_ practice before the 
sunreme court four years later. Tn ISflfi he was elected probate judge for Chippewa 
county, whloh office he resigned on the oulbrenk of the Spanish war. He raised a com- 
pany and served about ten months as first lieutenant in the 3oth Mich.. H. S. Vol.. 
regiment About one-half of his service was that of company commander. IJnon being 
mustered out with his regiment he was appointed deputy commlssloneT of railroads for 
Miehrean. whieh offlee he now holds. August, 1901, he established the Lake Superior 
Journal at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. 



39 



306 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

John Johnston, the head of the Johnston family, so well known to the historian, 
the traveler, and the resident of Michigan and the great Northwest, during the 
first quarter of the last century, was born in Antrim county, Ireland, near the vil- 
lage of Coleraine, in 1763. His father was a civil engineer, who planned and exe- 
cuted the waterworks at Belfast. His mother was a sister of Mary Saurin, wife 
of Bishop Saurin, of Dromore, and also sister of the attorney general for Ireland. 
Mr. Johnston emigrated to the new world in 1792, and was received by Lord Dor- 
chester, governor of Canada, and presented such strong letters of recommendation 
that the governor urged the young Irishman to remain in Montreal until an opening 
for him should occur in the British service. Johnston soon joined a trading party 
bound for Lake Superior. He spent some months at the Saut* and then followed 
Lake Superior as far west as La Point, opposite the Twelve Apostles islands, where 
he e3tablished a trading post. Soon after his arrival there he met a beautiful In- 
dian girl, the daughter of the head chief, Wab-o-jeeg or the White Fisher, a bold 
and successful warrior. The following year, 1793, Johnston and the Indian girl 
were married and settled at Saut de Ste. Marie, where he continued to reside until 
his death, which occurred September 22, 1828. For 35 years he was a leading frontier 
merchant, and although far removed from the comforts of civilization there was 
always a refined and cultured atmosphere about his modest home. 

In 1814 Lieut. Col. Croghan of the United States Army was sent to capture 
the British position at Mackinac, then commanded by Col. McDowell. The latter, 
hearing of the intentions of the Americans, sought the aid of Johnston and his 
friends at the Saut, and it appears to have been freely given. Not only did a 
band of 100 men set out for Mackinac under Johnston, but this force was provi- 
sioned and equipped by him. The American, Col. Croghan, appeared to under- 
stand the situation thoroughly, and dispatched Major Holmes to intercept the 
Indians; but the Johnston party took the unknown route west of Sugar island, now 
the Hay Lake channel, and then through the West Neebish, and escaped. On the 
arrival of the Americans at the Saut, they found that those whom they had set out 
to intercept had eluded their vigilance, and, being urged on by rage and duty, de- 
stroyed the trading village near the falls. After this Major Holmes returned to 
aid in the assault under Col. Croghan. He was among the 17 soldiers killed in that 
affair August 4, 1814. His sword was stolen by the Indians and presented to George 
Johnston, second son of John Johnston. 

Subsequently, after the peace of 1815, when the republic had driven all her active 
enemies from her soil, Mr. Johnston appealed to the powers that once were to 
compensate him for his loss and expenditures. The British very gracefully refused 
to acknowledge his assistance or recompense him for the loss incurred in aiding 
them. Johnston then presented his claim to the United States government for loss 
of property, and met with no success, owing to his loyalty to the British cause. The 
testimony and correspondence in Vol. 4 of American state papers, on pages 697-701, 
show that John Johnston was an officer in the British service during the war of 
1812, and it was largely for this reason that the commissioner of the general land 
office at Washington refused to confirm his claim to a tract of land at Saut de 
Ste. Marie which had been improved and a large number of buildings, including the 
Johnston residence, yet standing, store, warehouses and farm buildings, built there- 
on. The title to this land was finally confirmed by Congress in 1853, and is known 
as private land claim 105 in the city of Sault Ste. Marie. The annexed map was 
first sketched from memory by John McD. Johnston, son of John Johnston. It was 



*Mr. Chiipman bns followprt the old wuy of spelling Saul d*» Sie. Marie and has taK'fn trreat pains 
to verify thi" spellinsf of sorrie of the Indian names, acceplintr ihe be'-t. authority for these. No 
fiuotation marks have been used for letters or lei^ends a.s they can. we think, be easily recognized as 
such.— Kditor. 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 307 

afterwards drawn to scale by Col. E. S. Wheeler, of the United States government 
engineering corps, who now owns and for many years resided in the old Johnston 
homestead. Col. Wheeler compared and corrected the map by an old map in the 
records of Fort Brady, made by Lieut. Wescott early in the last century. 

There were eight children in the Johnston family, all born at the Sault: Louis, 
born 1793, died at Maiden 1825; George, born 1796, died at Sault Jan. 6, 1861; 
Jane, born 1800, died at Niagara May 22, 1842; Eliza, born 1802, died 1888; Char- 
lotte, born 1806, died 1878; William, born 1811, died at Mackinac 1866; Anna Maria, 
born 1814, died at Pontiac 1856; John McDougal, born 1816, died at Sault Feb. 
14, 1895. 

Of the children, several were prominent actors in making history three-quarters 
of a century ago: Louis served on board the Queen Charlotte when she was cap- 
tui-ed by one of the United States gunboats under Commodore Perry on Lake Erie 
in 1813. George served in the British army, and was in the engagement at Mack- 
inac Island August 4, 1814. William was an Indian interpreter at various times for 
the United States government. John McD. was for a number of years Indian inter- 
preter to his brother-in-law, Henry R. Schoolcraft, and afterwards acted in this 
capacity for the United States government. Jane was a woman of great beauty, 
highly accomplished, and of much ability, and was married in 1823 to Henry R. 
Schoolcraft, the writer and historian. Eliza, a woman of great beauty and accom- 
plishments, never married. Charlotte became the wife of an Episcopal clergyman 
named McMurray, a missionary at the Sault at the time, but subsequently arch- 
deacon of Niagara. Anna Maria, the youngest daughter, was the wife of James 
L. Schoolcraft, who was murdered at the Sault in 1846 by Lieut. Tilden of the 
United States army. 

All of the early travelers to Lake Superior speak of the interesting Johnston fam- 
ily and the hospitality and entertaining ability of John Johnston. During the 
month of July, 1826, Colonel Thomas L. McKenney, of the Indian Department at 
Washington, and a joint commissioner with Governor Cass in negotiating the 
treaty of Fond du Lac, in company with the governor, visited the Johnston family 
at the Sault, and in a letter to his wife, describes the girls and the home as they 
appeared to him at that time. Col. McKenney says: 

We spent this evening, I mean the Governor, Colonel Croghan and myself, at 
Mr. Schoolcraft's, where we met Mr. Johnston, the patriarch of the place, and his 
family, except his wife, who, though not of the party this evening, I have seen. 

Mr. Johnston is by birth an Irishman, and his connections in the "old country" 
are among the nobility. He has been in this country nearly forty years. His wife 
is a woman of the Chippewa, or, as it should be called 0-jib-way nation, and 
daughter of the famous Wab-o-jeeg, the great chief formerly of La Point, of Lake 
Superior, a man of renown, and one who ruled both in wisdom and valour, and 
proved himself in every, emergency, to have been worthy of the station he held as 
chief of his band. 

A personal acquaintance with Mr, Johnston and his family I esteem to be among 
the most interesting circumstances of my, so far, agreeable travels. 

Mr. Johnston is in his 64th year, and Mrs. Johnston in her 54th. He is feeble and 
decrepit. A free liver in earlier life, he now feels the burden of 64 winters to be 
great; and in addition to the infirm state of his health, he has the dropsy in one 
foot and ankle, which at times occasions him great pain, and often deprives him 
altogether of ability to walk, which he never does without limping, and then by the 
aid of a staff. His education and intercourse with polished society in early life, in- 
deed up to his 30th year, have given him many very striking advantages over the 
inhabitants of those distant regions, and indeed fit him to shine anywhere; whilst 



308 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

the genuine Irish hospitality of his heart has made his house a place Of most agree^ 
able resort to travelers. In his person Mr. Johnston is neat; in his manners affable 
and polite; in conversation intelligent. His language is always that of thought, 
and often strikingly graphic. He is always cheerful— even when he is afflicted most. 
There is something charming in such an autumn. It gives place to winter so 
gradually as to make its retirement imperceptible. It is beautiful to see those 
bright gleams of setting life thus shining upon the evening hours of such a man. 

In height Mr. Johnston is about five feet ten inches; and before he was bent by age 
and infirmity his figure was doubtless fine. His hair is of the true Scotch yellow, 
intermixed with gray. His forehead, though retreating, is high and full, especally 
about the brows. His eyes are dark, small, and penetrating, and full of intelligent 
expression. His nose and mouth (except that the loss of teeth has changed the 
character of the latter some, though his lips have yet great firmness) are well 
formed, and judging from what is left, and from a portrait which hangs over the 
fireplace in the drawing-room of his residence, he must have been very handsome 
when young. 

Mrs. Johnston is genuine Chippewa, without the smallest admixture of white blood. 
She is tall and large, but uncommonly active and cheerful. She dresses nearly in 
the costume of her nation — a petticoat of blue cloth, a short gown of calico, with 
leggins worked with beads, and moccasins. Her hair is black. She plaits and fas- 
tens it up behind with a comb. Her eyes are black and expressive, and pretty well 
marked, according to phrenologists, with the development of language. She has 
fine teeth; indeed her face, taken altogether (with her high cheek-bones, com- 
pressed forehead, and jutting brows) denotes a vigorous intellect and great firm- 
ness of character, and needs only to be seen to satisfy even a tyro in physiognomy 
like myself that she required only the advantages of education and society to place 
her on a level with the most distinguished of her sex. As it is she is a prodigj-. As 
a wife she is devoted to her husband, as a mother tender and affectionate, as a 
friend faithful. She manages her domestic concerns in a way that might afford les- 
sons to the better instructed. They are rarely exceeded anywhere, whilst she vies 
with her generous husband in his hospitality to strangers. She understands but 
will not speak English. As to influence, there is no chief in the Chippewa nation 
who exercises it, when it is necessary for her to do so, with equal success. This 
has been often tested, but especially at the treaty of cession at this place in 1820. 
Governor Cass, the commissioner, was made fully sensible of her power then; for, 
when every evidence was given that the then pending negotiation would issue 
not only in resistance on the part of the Indians to the propositions of the commis- 
sioner, but in a serious rupture, she, at this critical moment, sent for some of the 
principal chiefs, directing that they should, to avoid the observation of the great 
"body of Indans, make a circuit and meet her in an avenue at the back of her resi- 
dence, and there, by her luminous exposition of their own weakness and the power 
of the United States, and by assurances of the friendly disposition of the govern- 
ment towards them and of their own mistaken views of the entire object of the 
commissioner, produced a change which resulted on that same evening in the con- 
clusion of the treaty. 

I have heard Governor Cass say that he felt himself under the greatest obligations 
to Mrs. Johnston for her co-operation at that critical moment; and that the United 
States is debtor to her, not only on account of that act, but on many others. She has 
never been known In a single instance to counsel her people contrary to her concep- 
tions of what was best for them, and never in opposition to the views of the gov- 
ernment. Her Indian name is 0-shaw-gus-co-day-way-qua. The Daughter of the 
Green Mountain. 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE '-SOO. 



309 



So much for the fatl^er and mother. I will now make you acquainted with some 
of their children. Of Mrs. Schoolcraft you have heard. She is wife, you know, of 
H. R. Schoolcraft, Esq., author of travels and other works of great merit, and 
Indian agent at this place. She is a little taller and thinner, but in other respects 
as to figure, resembles her sister, Mrs. McMurray, and has her face precisely. Her 
voice is feeble and tremulous; her utterance slow and distinct. There is something 
silvery in it. Mildness of expression, and softness, and delicacy of manners, as 
well as of voice, characterize her. She dresses with great taste, and in all respects 
in the costume of our fashionables, but wears leggins of black silk, drawn and 
ruffled around the ankles, resembling those worn by our little girls. I think them 
ornamental. You would never judge, either from her complexion or language or 
from any other circumstance, that her mother was a Chippewa, except that her 
moderately high cheek-bones, her dark and fine eye, and breadth of jaw slightly indi- 
cate it; and you would never believe it, except on her own confession or upon some 
equally responsible testimony, were you to hear her converse, or see her beautiful, 
and some of them highly-finished, compositions, in both prose and poetry. You 
would not believe it, not because such attainments might not be universal, but be- 
cause, from lack of the means necessary for their accomplishment, such cases 
are so rare. Mrs. Schoolcraft is indebted mainly to her father, who is doatingly 
fond of her, for her handsome and polished acquirements. She accompanied him 
some years ago, and before her marriage, to Europe; and has been the companion 
of his solitude, in all that related to mind, for he seems to have educated her for 
the sake of enjoying its exercise. The old gentleman, when in Edinburgh, had sev- 
eral propositions made to him to remain. The Dutchess of Devonshire, I think it 
was, would have adopted Mrs. Schoolcraft; and several propositions beside were 
made to settle upon her wealth and its distinctions; and his own friends and 
connexions joined to keep him among them by offers of great magnitude. But he 
told them he had married the daughter of a king in America, and although he ap- 
preciated, and was very grateful for, their offers to himself and his Jane, he must de- 
cline them and return to his wife, who, through such a variety of fortune, had been 
faithful and devoted to him. Mrs. Schoolcraft is, I should judge, about 22 years of 
age. She would be an ornament to any society; and with better health (for at 
present she enjoys this great blessing but partially) would take a first rank among 
the best improved, whether in acquirements, taste, or graces. 

Charlotte comes next in order, being younger than Mrs. Schoolcraft by some two 
or three years. Here again, without the advantages of education to the same extent, 
or equal opportunities for improvement, but with no deficiencies in these matters, 
you have a beautiful specimen of female of mixed blood. This interesting young 
lady has but little of the mother's complexion. She possesses charms which are only 
now and then seen in our more populous and polished circles. These are in the 
form and expression of a beautiful face, where the best and most amiable and cheer- 
ful of tempers — the loveliest and most captivating ornament of the sex— sits always 
with the sweetness of spring, and from whence the graces seem never to have de- 
parted even for a moment; and all this has imparted to it an additional interest in 
her own total unconsciousness of their presence, and of her powers to please. Her 
eyes are black, but soft in their expression, and between her lips, which I have 
never seen otherwise than half parted with a smile, is a beautiful set of ivory. Her 
style of dress is neat, and in all respects such as we see in our cities. She would be 
said to be rather tall; yet her person is good. She sings most sweetly, but seems un- 
conscious of it; and, lest I should forget it, I will copy into this letter a beautiful 
song which she sings with her most enchanting effect, called the "0-jib-way Maid." 
Having prevailed upon her to sing this song several times, I have learned the air 



310 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

with a view of having it written out in parts. Mrs. Schoolcraft has oblingingly fav- 
ored me with the original, and with her literal translation of it, in prose; and 
Charlotte has presented me with a version of it by a major of the United States 
army. I have heard this little song sung in both the original and its version. The 
airs are different; both are plaintive, and both sweet, but that in which the original 
is sung is the wildest. My opinion of Charlotte is that she would be a belle in 
Washingon, were she there, as I find she is here. No one speaks of her but in terms 
of admiration of her amiable disposition, and in praise of her beauty; and accord- 
ing to my own observation and taste, she merits richly all the praise that is be- 
stowed. 

Eliza, who is next younger than Mrs. Schoolcraft. I have never yet got her to 
consent to speak English. I have not, therefore, been able to judge of her im- 
provement. She appears to be a fine young lady, and of excellent dispositions. Her 
complexion is more like her mother's than the rest. The youngest, Anna Maria, 
is now about twelve years old, and is growing up, I think, in most re- 
spects, like Charlotte. She certainly bids fair to be handsome. 

When I look upon this group of interesting children, and reflect that their mother 
is a native of our wilds, I wish, for the sake of the Indians, that every representa- 
tive of the people, and all who might have influence to bring about a complete sys- 
tem for the preservation and improvement, of at least the rising generation, could 
see them too. 

But lest I forget it, I will now copy. 

THE O-JIB-WAY MAID. 

ORIGINAL OF THE O-JIB-WAY MAID. 

Aun dush ween do win ane 
Gitchy Mocomaun aince 
Caw auzhaw woh da mode 

We yea, yea haw ha, etc. 

Wah yaw burn maud e 
Ojibway quainee un e 
We maw jaw need e 

We yea, yea haw ha, etc. 

Omowe maun e 
We nemoshain yun 
We maw jaw need e 

We yea, yea haw ha, etc. 

Caw ween gush sha ween 
Kin wainyh e we yea 
O guh maw e maw seen 

We yea, yea haw ha, etc. 

Me gosh sha ween e yea 
Ke bish quaw bum maud e 
Tehe won aln e maud e 

We yea, yea haw ha, etc. 

Literal- Translation by Mrs. Schoolcraft: 

Why. What's the matter with the young American? He crosses the river with 
tears in his eyes. He sees the young Ojibway girl preparing to leave the place; he 
sobs for his sweetheart, because she is going away, but he will not sigh long 
for her, for as soon as he is out of her sight, he will forget her. 

VERSION. 

That stream, along whose bosom bright. 
With joy I've seen your bark appear; 
You cross, no longer with delight. 
Nor I, with joy, your greeting hear. 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE ''SOO." 311 

And can such cause, alone, draw tears 
From eyes, that always smll'd before? 
Of parting— can it be the fears; 
Of parting now— to meet no more? 

But heavily though now you sigh; 
And tho' your griefs be now sincere, 
To find our dreaded parting nigh. 
And bid farewell to pleasures dear — 

When o'er the waters, wide and deep, 
Far- thine Ojibway Maid shall be, 
New loves will make you cense to weep. 
Nor e'er again, remember me. 

Saut de Ste. Marie, July 6, 1826. 

Mrs. Johnston and some of her remarkable ancestors deserve more space and 
time than I can here give. However, I will introduce the father of this talented 
Indian woman with one of his war songs, as he used, together with his warriors, to 
sing it and as translated by Mr. Johnston: 

Where are my foes? say, warriors, where? No forest is so black. 

That it can hide from my quick eye. the vestige of their track: 

There is no lake so boundless, no path where man may go. 

Can shield them from my sharp pursuit, or save them from my blow. 

The winds that whisper in the trees, the clouds that spot the sky. 

Impart a soft intelligence, to show me where they lie. 

The very birds that sail the air. and scream as on they go, 

Give me a clue my course to tread, and lead me to the foe. 

The sun at dawn, lifts up its head, to guide me on my way. 

The moon at night looks softly down, and cheers me with her ray. 

The war-crowned stars, those beaming lights, my spirit casts at night, 

Direct me as I thread the maze, and lead me to the fight. 

In sacred dreams within my lodge, while resting on the land. 

Bright omens of success arise, and nerve my warlike hand. 

Where'er I turn, where'er I go. there is a whispering sound, 

That tells me I shall crush the foe, and drive him from my ground. 

The beaming west invites me on, with smiles of vermil hue. 
And clouds of promise fill the sky. and deck its heavenly blue. 
There is no breeze, there is no sign, in ocean, earth or sky. 
That does not swell my breast with hope, or animate my eye. 
If to the stormy beach I go, where heavy tempests play. 
They tell me but. how warriors brave, should conquer in the fray. 
All nature fills my heart with fires, that prompt me on to go. 
To rush with rage, and lifted spear, upon my country's foe. 

"Wab-o-jeeg was the second son of the famous Mongazida. He was generally victor- 
ious, and so entirely defeated the Ottagamies that they never afterwards ventured to 
oppose him, but retired down the Wisconsin river, where they settled. 

But Wab-o-jeeg was something more and better than merely a successful warrior: 
lie was remarkable for his eloquence, and composed a number of war songs, which 
were sung through the Chippewa villages, and some of which his daughter often 
repeated. He was no less skillful in hunting than in war. His hunting grounds 
extended to the river Broule, at Fond du Lac; and he killed any one who dared to 
intrude on his district. The skins he took annually were worth $350, a sum amply 
suflScient to make him rich in clothing, arms, powder, vermilion, and trinkets. Like 
Tecumseh, he would not marry early lest it should turn his attention from war, 
but at the age of 30 he married a widow, by whom he had two sons. Becoming 
tired of his elderly helpmeet, he took a young wife, a beautiful girl of 14, by w^iom 
he had six children; of these Mrs. Johnston was the eldest. She described her 
father as domestic and affectionate. There was always plenty of bear's meat and 
deer's flesh in the lodge. He had a splendid lodge, 60 feet in length, which he was 
fond of ornamenting. In the centre there was a strong post, which rose several feet 
above the roof, and on the top there was the carved figure of an owl, which veered 
with the wind. This owl seems to have answered the purpose of a flag; it was the 



312 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

insignia of his power and of his presence. "When absent on his long winter hunts 
the lodge was shut up, and the owl taken down. 

The skill of Wab-o-jeeg as a hunter and trapper brought him into friendly com- 
munication with Mr. Johnston. While on one of his expeditions, when encamped at 
Red Cliff Point southwest of the Twelve Apostles islands, and trafficking with 
"Wab-o-jeeg, he saw the eldest daughter of the chief, and no sooner looked than he 
sighed, no sooner sighed, than he asked himself the reason, and ended by asking his 
friend to give him his beautiful daughter. ""White man!" said the chief with dignity, 
"your customs are not our customs! You white men desire our women, you marry 
them, and when they cease to please your eye you say they are not your wives, 
and you forsake them. Return, young friend, with your load of skins, to Montreal; 
and if there the women of the pale faces do not put my child out of your mind, 
return hither in the spring and we will talk further; she is young, and can wait."^ 
The young Irishman, ardentlj^ in love, and impatient and impetuous, after the man- 
ner of his countrymen, tried arguments, entreaties, presents, in vain; he was 
obliged to submit. He went down to Montreal, and the following spring returned 
and claimed his bride. The chief, after making him swear that he would take her 
as his wife according to the law of the white man, till death, gave him his daugh- 
ter, with a long speech of advice to both. 

Mrs. Johnston relates that previous to her marriage she fasted, according to the 
universal Indian custom, for a guardian spirit. To perform this ceremony she 
went away to the summit of an eminence and built herself a little lodge of cedar 
boughs, painted herself black, and began her fast in solitude. She dreamed con- 
tinually of a white man, who approached her with a cup in his hand, saying, "Poor 
thing! why are you punishing yourself? Why do you fast? Here is food for 
you!" He was always accompanied by a dog which looked up in her face as though 
he knew her. Also she dreamed of being on a high hill, which was surrounded by 
water, and from which she beheld many canoes full of Indians coming to her and" 
paying her homage; after this she felt as if she was carried up into the heavens, and 
as she looked down upon the earth she perceived it was on fire and said to herself, 
"All my relations will be burned!" but a voice answered and said, "No, they will not 
be destroyed; they will be saved;" and she knew it was a spirit, because the voice 
was not human. She fasted for ten days, during which time her grandmother 
brought her at intervals some water. When satisfied that she had obtained a 
guardian spirit in the white stranger who haunted Ijer dreams, she returned to her 
father's lodge carrying green cedar boughs, which she threw on the ground, step- 
ping on them as she went. When she entered the lodge she threw some more down 
upon her usual place (next her mother), and took her seat. During the ten suc- 
ceeding days she was not permitted to eat any meat, nor anything but a little corn 
boiled with a bitter herb. For ten days more she ate meat smoked in a particular 
manner, and she then partook of the usual food of her family. 

Notwithstanding that her future husband and future greatness were so clearly 
prefigured in this dream, the pretty 0-shaw-gus-co-day-way-qua, having always re- 
garded a white man with awe, and as a being of quite another species (perhaps the 
more so in consequence of her dream, seems to have felt nothing throughout the 
whole negotiation for her hand but reluctance, terror, and aversion. On being car- 
ried with the usual ceremonies, to her husband's lodge, she fled into a dark corner, 
rolled herself up in her blanket, and would not be comforted nor even looked 
upon. It is to the honor of Johnston that he took no cruel advantage of their 
mutual position, and that she remained in his lodge ten days, during which he 
treated her with the utmost tenderness and respect, and sought by every gentle 
means to overcome her fear and gain her affection; one traveler, referring to this- 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 313 

incident, says it was touching to see how tenderly and gratefully this was reraem- 
bt-red by hio wife after a lapse of 36 years. On the tenth day, however, she ran 
away from him in a paroxysm of terror, and, after fasting in the woods for four 
days, reached her grandfather's wigwam. Meantime her father, Wab-o-jeeg, who 
was far off in his hunting camp, dreamed that his daughter had not conducted 
herseir according to his advice, with proper wife-like docility, and he returned in 
haste, two days' journey to see after her and finding all things according to his 
dream, he gave her a good beating wuth a stick, and threatened to cut off both her 
ears. He then took her back to her husband, with a propitiatory present of furs 
and Indian corn, and many apologies and exculpations of his own honor. Johnston 
succeeded at length in taming this shy wild fawn, and took her to his house at the 
Saut de Ste. Marie. When she had been there some time she was seized with a 
longing once more to behold her mother's face, and revisit her people. Her hus- 
band had lately purchased a small schooner to trade upon the lake; this he fitted 
out, and sent her, with a retinue of his clerks and retainers, and in such state as 
became the wife of the great Englishman, to her home at La Point, loaded with 
magnificent presents for all her family. He did not go with her himself, apparently 
from motives of delicacy, and that he might be no constraint upon her feelings or 
movements. A few months' residence amid comparative splendor and luxury, with 
a man who treated her with respect and tenderness, enabled the fair 0-shaw-gus-co- 
day-way-qua to contrast her former with her present home. She soon returned to 
her husband, and we do not hear of any more languishings after her father's 
wigwam. She lived most happily with John Johnston for 36 years, till his death, 
which occurred in 1S28. 

At the treaty of Fond du Lac, concluded August 7, 1827, was given to 0-shaw-gus- 
co-day-w^ay-qua, wife of John Johnston, to each of her children and to each of her 
grandchildren, one section of land. Part of this land was selected from the high 
lands of Sugar island, a few miles below the Saut. Following the death of her 
husband, she turned her attention to the manufacture of maple sugar on her estate 
and each year marketed several tons. In the fall she would go with her people in 
canoes to the entrance of Lake Superior to fish in the bays and creeks for a fort- 
night, and return with a load of fish cured for the winter's consumption. In her 
youth she hunted, and was accounted the surest eye and fieetest foot among the 
women of her tribe. Her talents, energy, activity, and strength of mind, and her 
skill in all the domestic vocations of the Indian women, have maintained comfort 
and plenty within her dwelling in spite of the losses sustained by her husband, 
while her descent from the blood of their ancient chiefs renders her an object of 
great veneration among the Indians around, who, in all their miseries, maladies and 
difficulties, applied to her for aid or for counsel. 

She inherited the poetical talent of her father Wab-o-jeeg and here is a little fable 
or allegory which was written down from her recitation, and translated by her 
daughter : 

THE ALLEGORY OF WINTER AND SUMMER. 

A man from the north, gray-haired, leaning on his staff, went roving over all 
countries. Looking around him one day, after having traveled without any inter- 
mission for four moons, he sought out a spot on which to recline and rest himself. 
He had not been long seated before he saw before him a young man, very beauti- 
ful in appearance, with red cheeks, sparkling eyes, and his hair covered with flow- 
ers; and from between his lips he blew a breath that was as sweet as the wild 
rose. 

40 



314 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

Said the old man to him, as he leaned upon his staff, his white beard reaching 
down upon his breast, "Let us repose here awhile, and converse a little. But first 
we will build up a fire, and we will bring together much wood, for it will be needed 
to keep us warm." 

The fire was made, and they took their seats by it, and began to converse, each 
telling the other where he came from, and what had befallen him by the way. 
Presently the young man felt cold. He looked around him to see what had produced 
this change, and pressed his hands against his cheeks to keep them warm. 

The old man spoke, and said, "When I wish to cross a river I breathe upon it and 
make it hard, and walk over upon its surface. I have only to speak, and bid the 
waters be still; and touch them with my finger, and they become hard as stone. 
The tread of my foot makes soft things hard; and my power is boundless." 

The young man, feeling every moment colder still, and growing tired of the old 
man's boasting, and morning being nigh, as he perceived by the reddening east, thus 
began : 

"Now, my father, I wish to speak." 

"Speak," said the old man, "my ear, though it be old, is open — it can hear." 

"Then," said the young man, "I also go over all the earth. I have seen it cov- 
ered with snow, and the waters I have seen as hard as stone; but I have only passed 
over them, and the snow has melted; the mountain streams have begun to flow, the 
rivers to move, the ice to melt; the earth has become green under my tread, the 
flowers blossomed, the birds were joyful; and all the power of which you boast van- 
ished away!" 

The old man drew a deep sigh, and shaking his head, he said, "I know thee, thou 

art summer?" 

"True," said the young man, "and here behold my head — see it crowned with 
flowers! and my cheeks, how they bloom — come near and touch me. Thou art win- 
ter! I know thy power is great; but, my father, thou darest not come to my 
country; thy beard would fall off, and all thy strength would fail, and thou 
wouldst die!" 

The old man felt this truth; for before the morning was come he was seen van- 
ishing away; but each, before they parted, expressed a hope that they might meet 
again before many moons. 

0-shaw-gus-co-day-way-qua (Mrs. Johnston) died at Sault Ste. Marie in November, 
1843. Several grandchildren and great grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Johnston 
now reside at the Sault, Neebish, and De Tour, on the Straits of Ste. Mary's. 

During the first quarter of The last century, the Johnston family's old homestead, 
with its spacious sitting-room, large, open fire-place, and highly-polished beams and 
woodwork, was to the traveler, the resident of the Saut, and the army oflacer from 
Fort Brady a place of the most pleasurable resort, taking the place of the opera 
house in the cities. During the long winter evenings while Kabbebonicca (the 
northwest storm spirit) was breathing his icy breath of the severest blasts, "with 
no earth beneath and no sky above," the visitors, who would be seated with the 
family and who always found this home a welcome retreat, would frequently observe 
a sudden commotion, and find, from the countenances of the family, that agreeable 

news had arrived. "Old has come!" There is general joy. An old Indian 

enters, enfeebled by years and no longer able to join warriors and hunters now, 
perhaps, absent on some dangerous enterprise. He possesses a memory retentive of 
the traditions of the tribe, and probably an imagination quick at invention or em- 
bellishment. He loves to repeat his tales, and all dearly love to listen. The old 
man, seated and surrounded by an attentive circle, begins his tale; and as the inter- 
est rises, and the narrative requires it, he now changes his tone to imitate different 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON B^AMILY OF THE "SCO." 315 

speakers, varies his countenance and attitude, or moves across the room to per- 
sonate the character he describes. Thus the Indians hand down their traditions of 
different Ivinds from generation to generation. Some of their tales were evidently 
forged for the purpose of teaching the duty of subserviency to the priests, others to 
respect old age and morality, and others to inspire the young to deeds of endurance 
and bravery in the chase and on the battlefield. A few of the stories thus told are 
here given: 

THE WHITE STONE CANOE. 

There was once a very beautiful young girl, who died suddenly on the day she was 
to have been married to a handsome young man. He was also brave, but his heart 
was not proof against this loss. From the hour she was buried there was no more 
joy or peace for him. He went often to visit the spot where the women had buried 
her and sat musing there, when, it was thought by some of his friends, he would 
have done better to try to amuse himself in the chase, or by diverting his thoughts 
in the war-path. But war and hunting had both lost their charms for him. His 
heart was already dead within him. He pushed aside both his war-club and his bow 
and arrows. 

He had heard the old people say that there was a path that led to the land of 
souls, and he determined to follow it. He accordingly set out, one morning, after 
having completed his preparations for the journey. At first he hardly knew which 
way to go. He was guided only by the tradition that he must go south. For a- 
while he could see no change in the face of the country. Forests, and hills, and 
valleys, and streams had the same looks which they wore in his native place. There 
was snow on the ground when he set out, and it was sometimes seen to be piled and 
matted on the thick trees and bushes. At length it began to diminish, and finally 
disappeared. The forest assumed a more cheerful appearance, the trees put forth 
their buds, and before he was aware of the completeness of the change he found him- 
self surrounded by spring. He had left behind him the land of snow and ice. The 
air became mild, the dark clouds of winter had rolled away from the sky; a pure 
field of blue was above him, and as he went he saw flowers beside his path, and 
heard the songs of birds. By these signs he knew that he was going the right 
way, for they agreed with the traditions of his tribe. At length he spied a path. 
It led him through a grove, then up a long and elevated ridge, on the very top of 
which he came to a lodge. At the door stood an old man with white hair, whose 
eyes, though deeply sunk, had a fiery brillancy. He had a long robe of skins thrown 
loosely around his shoulders, and a staff in his hands. 

The young Chippewayan began to tell his story: but the venerable chief arrested 
him before he had proceeded to speak ten words. "I have expected you," he replied, 
"and had just risen to bid you welcome to my abode. She, whom you seek, passed 
here but a few days since, and being fatigued with her journey, rested herself here. 
Enter my lodge and be seated, and I will then satisfy your enquiries, and give you 
directions for your journey from this point." Having done this, they both issued 
forth to the lodge door. "You see yonder gulf," said he, "and the wide-stretching 
blue plains beyond. It is the land of souls. You stand upon its borders, and my 
lodge is the gate of entrance. But you cannot take your body along. I.eave it here 
with your bow and arrows, your bundle, and your dog, You will find them safe 
on your return." So saying, he re-entered the lodge, and the freed traveler bounded 
forward as if his feet had suddenly been endowed with the power of wings. But 
all things retained their natural colors and shapes. The woods and leaves, and 
streams and lakes, were only more bright and comely than he had ever witnessed. 
Animals bounded across his path with a freedom and a confidence which seemed 



316 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

to tell him there was no bloodshed here. Birds of beautiful plumage inhabited the 
groves and sported in the waters. There was but one thing in which he saw a very- 
unusual effect. He noticed that his passage was not stopped by trees or other 
objects. He appeared to walk directly through them. They were, in fact, but the 
souls or shadows of material trees. He became sensible that he was in a land of 
shadows. When he had traveled half a day's journey through a country which was 
continually becoming more attractive, he came to the banks of a broad lake, in the- 
center of which was a large and beautiful island. He found a canoe of shining 
white stone tied to the shore. He was now sure that he had come the right path, 
for the aged man had told him of this. There were also shining paddles. He im- 
mediately entered the canoe and took the paddles in his hands, when, to his joy 
and surprise, on turning round, he beheld the object of his search in another canoe, 
exactly its counterpart in every thing. She had exactly imitated his motions and 
they were side by side. They at once pushed out from shore and began to cross 
the lake. It? waves seemed to be rising and at a distance looked ready to swallow 
them up; but just as they entered the whitened edge of them they seemed to melt 
away, as if they were but the images of waves. But no sooner was one wreath of 
foam passed, than another, more threatening still, rose up. Thus they were in 
perpetual fear; and what added to it was the clearness of the water, through which 
they could see heaps of beings who had perished before, and whose bones lay strewn 
on the bottom of the lake. The Master of Life had, however, decreed to let them 
pass, for the actions of neither of them had been bad. But they saw many others 
struggling and sinking in the waves. Old men and young men, males and females 
of all ages and rank, were there; some passed, and some sank. It was only the 
little children whose canoes seemed to meet no waves. At length every difficulty 
was gone, as in a moment, and they both leapt out on the happy island. They felt 
that the very air was food. It strengthened and nourished them. They wandered 
together over the blissful fields, where everything was formed to please the eye and 
the ear. There were no tempests; there was no ice, no chilly winds; no one shivered 
for the want of warm clothes; no one suffered for hunger; no one mourned for the 
dead. They saw no graves. They heard of no wars. There was no hunting of ani- 
mals; for the air itself was their food. Gladly would the young warrior have re- 
mained there forever, but he was obliged to go back for his body. He did not see 
the Master of Life, but he heard his voice in a soft breeze: "Go back," said this 
voice, "to the land from whence you came. Your time has not yet come. The duties 
for which I made you and which you are to perform are not yet finished. Return to 
your people and accomplish the duties of a good man. You will be the ruler of your 
tribe for many days. The rules you must observe will be told you by my messenger 
who keeps the gate when he surrenders back your body he will tell you what to do. 
Listen to him and you shall afterwards rejoin the spirit which you must now leave 
behind. She is accepted and will be ever here as young and as happy as she -was 
when I first called her from the land of snows." "When this voice ceased, the nar- 
rator awoke. It was the fancy work of a dream, and he was still in the bitter land 
of snows and hunger and tears. 

WANISHISH-BYUN. 

Wanishish-eyun was the wife of a brave young hunter and warrior, by whom she 
had two children. They lived together in great happiness, which was only varied 
by the changes of a forest life. Sometimes they lived on the prairies; sometimes 
they built their wigwam in the forest near the banks of a stream, and they paddled 
their canoe up and down the rivers. In these trips they got fish, when they were 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO/' 317 

tired of wild meats. lu the summer season they kept on the open grounds; in the 
winter they fixed their camp in a sheltered position in the woods. The very change 
of their camp was a source of pleasure, for they were always on the look-out for 
something new. They had plenty, and they wanted nothing. In this manner the 
first years of their marriage passed away. But it so happened that as years went by 
the reputation of her husband in the tribe increased, and he soon became to be re- 
garded as a Weetshahstshy Atapee, or chief. This opened a new field for his ambi- 
tion and pride. The fame of a chief, it is well known, is often increased by the 
number of his wives. His lodge was now thronged with visitors. Some came to 
consult him; some to gain his favor. All this gave Wanisish-eyun no uneasiness, 
for the red people like to have visitors, and show hospitality. The first thing that 
caused a jar in her mind was the rumor that her husband was about to take a new 
wife. This was like a poison in her veins; for she had a big heart. She was much 
attached to her husband and she could not bear the idea of sharing his affections 
with another. But she found that the idea had already got strong hold of her hus- 
band's mind, and her remonstrances did little good. He defended himself on the 
ground that it would give him greater influence in the tribe if he took the daughter 
of a noted chief. But before he had time to bring her to his lodge, Wanishish-eyun 
had fled from it, taking her two children, and returning to her father's lodge. Her 
father lived at some distance, and here she remained a short time in quiet. The 
whole band soon moved up near the pictured rocks, to their hunting ground. She 
was glad to go with them, and would, indeed, have been glad to go anywhere to 
get farther from the lodge of her faithless husband. Here the winter wore away. 
When the spring opened they mended and fitted up the canoes which they had left in 
the fall. In these they put their furs and departed for the Saut. The night before 
reaching the destination, the band camped at Point aux Pins, a short distance above 
the falls. Wanishish-eyun lingered behind a short time the next morning. She 
then put her canoe into the water and embarked with her children. As she 
approached the falls, the increasing velocity of the current rendered the paddles of 
but little use. She rested with hers suspended in her hands, while she arose and 
uttered her lament: 

"It was him only that I loved with the love of my heart. It was for him that I 
prepared with joy the fresh-killed meat and swept with boughs my lodge-fire. It 
was for him I dressed the skin of the noble deer and worked with my hands the 
moccasins that graced his feet. I waited while the sun ran his daily course for 
his return from the chase, and I rejoiced in my heart when I heard his manly foot- 
steps approach the lodge. He threw down his burden at the door; it was a haunch 
of the deer; I flew to prepare the meat for his use. My heart was bound up in 
him, and he was all the world to me. But he has left me for another, and life is now 
a burden which I cannot bear. Even my children add to my griefs— they look so 
much like him. How can I support life when all its moments are bitter! I have 
lifted up my voice to the Master of Life. I have asked him to take back that life 
which he gave and which I no longer wish. I am on the current that hastens to 
fulfill my prayer. I see the white foam of the water. It is my shroud. T hear 
the deep murmur from below. It is my funeral song. Farewell." 

It was too late to arrest her course. She had approached too near the abyss 
before her purpose was discovered by her friends. They beheld her enter the foam; 
they saw the canoe for an instant on the verge and then disappear forever. Such 
was the end of Wanishish-eyeun; and they say her canoe can sometimes be seen, by 
moonlight, plunging down the rapids and into the big falls. 



318 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

WA-WA-BE-ZO-WIN. 

At Gros Cap there was an old hag of a woman living with her daughter-in-law 
and son, and a little orphan boy whom she was bringing up. When her son-in-law 
came home from hunting, it was his custom to bring his wife, the moose's lip, the 
kidney of the bear, or some other choice bits of different animals. These she would 
cook crisp, so as to make a sound with her teeth in eating them. This kind atten- 
tion of the hunter to his wife at last excited the envy of the old woman. She 
wished to have the same luxuries, and in order to get them she finally resolved to 
make way with her son's wife. One day she asked her to leave her infant son to 
the care of the orphan boy, and come out and swing with her. She took her to 
the shore of a lake where there was a high range of rocks overhanging the water. 
Upon the top of this rock she erected a swing. She then undressed and fastened a 
piece of leather around her body and commenced swinging, going over the precipice 
at every swing. She continued it but a short time when she told her daughter 
to do the same. The daughter^ obeyed. She undressed, and tying the leather 
string as she was directed, began swinging. When the swing had got in full motion 
and well agoing so that it went clear beyond the precipice at every sweep, the old 
woman slyly cut the cords and let her daughter drop into the lake. She then put on. 
her daughter's clothing, and, thus disguised, went home in the dusk of the evening 
and counterfeited her appearance and duties. She found the child crying and gave 
it the breast, but it would not draw. The orphan boy asked where its mother 
was. She answered, "She is still swinging." He said, "I shall go and look for her." 
"No!" said she, "you must not — what should you go for?" When the husband came 
in, in the evening, he gave the coveted morsel to his supposed wife. He misseS 
his mother-in-law, but said nothing. She eagerly ate the dainty, and tried to keep 
the child still. The husband looked rather astonished to see his wife studiously 
averting'her face, and asked why the child cried so. She said, she did not know — 
that it would not draw. 

In the meantime the orphan boy went to the lake shore, and found no one. 
He mentioned his suspicions, and v/hile the old woman was out getting wood, he 
told him all that he had heard or seen. The man then painted his face black 
and placed his spear upside down in the earth and requested the Great Spirit ta 
send lightning, thunder, and rain in the hope that the body of his wife might arise 
from the water. He then began to fast, and told the boy to take the child and 
play on the lake shore. 

We must now go back to the swing. After the wife had plunged into the lake, 
she found herself taken hold of by a water tiger, whose tail twisted itself around 
her body and drew her to the bottom. There she found a fine lodge and all things 
ready for her reception, and she became the wife of the water tiger. Whilst the 
children were playing along the shore, and the boy was casting pebbles into 
the lake, he saw a gull coming from its center and flying towards the shore, and, 
when on shore, the bird immediately assumed the human shape. When he looked 
again he recognized the lost mother. She had a leather belt around her loins, and 
another belt of white metal which was, in reality, the tail of the water tiger, her 
husband. She suckled her babe, and said to the boy, "Come here with him when- 
ever he cries and I will nurse him." 

The boy carried the child home and told these things to the father. When the 
child again cried, the father went also with the boy to the lake shore and hid him- 
self in a clump of trees. Soon the appearance of a gull was seen with a long 
shining bolt, or chain, and as soon as it came to the shore, it assumed the mother's 
shape and began to suckle the child. The husband had brought along his spear, 
and seeing the shining chain he boldly struck it and broke the links apart. He 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 319 

then took his wife and child home, with the orphan boy. When they entered the 
lodge the old woman looked up, but it was a look of despair; she instantly dropped 
her head. A rustling was heard in the lodge, and the next moment she leaped up 
and flew out of the lodge and was never heard of more. 

MASH-KWA-SHA-KWONG. 

Mash-kwa-sha-kwong was a first-rate hunter, and he loved the chase exceedingly 
and pursued it with unceasing vigilance. One day, on his return home, on arriving 
at his lodge, he was informed by his two sons, who were but small then, that they 
were very lonesome, because their mother was in the habit of daily leaving them 
alone, and this occurred so soon as he started upon his daily chase. This circum- 
stance was not unknown to Mash-kwa-sha-kwong, but he seemed fully aware of it; 
he took his boys in his arms and kissed them and told them that their mother 
behaved improperly and was acting the part of a wicked and faithless woman. But 
Mash-kwa-sha-kwong behaved towards his wife as if ignorant of her vile course. 
One morning, rising very early, he told his sons to take courage and that they must 
not be lonesome; he also strictly enjoined them not to absent themselves nor quit 
their lodge; after this injunction was given to the boys he made preparations, and, 
starting much earlier than usual, he traveled but a short distance from his lodge, 
when he halted /and secreted himself. After waiting a short time, he saw his wife 
coming out of their lodge, and immediately after a man made his appearance and, 
meeting Mash-kwa-sha-kwong's wife, they greeted one another. His suspicions 
were now confirmed, and when he saw them in the act of carrying on an illegal 
intercourse, his anger arose; he went up to them and killed them with one blow; 
he then dragged them both to his lodge, and tying them together, he dug a hole 
beneath the fire-place in his lodge and buried them. He then told his sons that 
it was necessary that he should go away, as he would surely be killed if he re- 
mained, and their safety would depend upon their ability to keep the matter a 
secret. He gave his elder son a small bird (Kichig-e-chig-aw-na-she) to roast for his 
small brother over the ashes and embers where their mother was buried; he also 
provided a small leather bag, and then told his sons the necessity of his immediate 
flight to heaven, or to the skies; and that it would be expedient for them to fly 
and journey southward, and thus prepared their minds for the separation about to 
take place. "By and by," said Mash-kwa-sha-kwong to his sons, "persons will come 
to you and enquire for me and for your mother; you will say to them that I am 
gone hunting, and your little brother in the meantime will continually point to the 
fire-place; this will lead the persons to whom I allude to make inquiries of the 
cause of this pointing, and you will tell them that you have a little bird roasting 
for your brother; this will cause them to desist from further inquiry at the time. 
As soon as they are gone, escape! While you are journeying, agreeable to my 
instructions, I will look from on high upon you; I will lead and conduct you, and 
you shall hear my voice from day to day." Mash-kwa-sha-kwong at this time gave 
his sons an awl, a beaver's tooth, and a hone, also a dry coal, and directed them 
to place a small piece of the coal on the ground every evening, so soon as they 
should encamp, from which fire would be produced and given to them; he told his 
elder son to place his brother in the leather bag, and in that manner carry him upon 
his back; he then bade them farewell. 

The two boys being thus left alone in the lodge, and while in the act of roasting 
the little bird provided for them, a man came in, and then another and another, 
until they numbered ten in all; the younger boy would from time to time point at 
the fire, and the men inquired to know the reason; the elder boy said that he was 
roasting a bird for his brother, and, digging the ashes, produced it. They inquired 



320 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

where their, father and mother were; the boy answering them, saying that their 
father was absent hunting, and that their mother had gone to chop and collect 
wood; upon this information the men rose and searched around the outskirts of the 
lodge, endeavoring to find traces of the man and his wife, but they were not suc- 
cessful, and returned to the lodge. Before this, however, and during the absence 
of the ten men, Mash-kwa-sha-kwong's elder son placed his little bi'other in the 
leather bag (Ouskemood), and ran away southward. 

One of the ten men observed that the smaller boy had repeatedly pointed to the 
fire-place, and that they might find out something by digging; they set to work, 
and found the woman and the man tied together. On this discovery their wrath 
was kindled, they brandished their weapons, denouncing imprecations upon Mash- 
kwa-she-kwong, who was, of course, suspected of having committed the deed. 

The ten men again renewed their search in order to avenge themselves upon the 
perpetrator of this dark deed; but Mash-kwa-sha-kwong, in order to avoid instant 
death, had sought a large hollow tree, and entering at the bottom or root part, passed 
through and reached the top of it, from whence he took his flight upwards to the 
sky. His pursuers finally traced him, and followed him as far as the tree, and into 
the sky, with loud and unceasing imprecations of revenge and their determination 
to kill him. The spirit of the mother alone followed her children. About mid-day 
the boys heard, as they ran, a noise in the heavens like the rolling of distant 
thunder.* The boys continued their journey south, when the noise ceased. To- 
wards night they encamped; they put a small piece of the coal on the ground, 
then a log of fire-wood was dropped down from the skies to them, from whence 
a good blazing fire was kindled. This was done daily, and when the fire was 
lighted, a raccoon would fall from on high upon the fire, and in this manner the 
boys were fed; and this overruling care they experienced daily. In the evenings 
at their camping place, and sometimes during the day, the Red Head's voice 
was heard speaking to his children, and encouraging them to use their utmost 
exertions to fly from the pursuit of their mother. To aid them in escaping, they 
were told to throw away their awl, and Immediately there grew a strong and 
almost impassable hedge of thorn bushes behind them, in their path, which the 
pursuing mother could scarcely penetrate, and thus impeding her progress, tearing 
away her whole body and leaving nothing but the head. So they escaped the first 
day. 

The next day they resumed their march and could distinctly hear the noise of 
combat in the sky, as if it were a roaring thunder; they also heard the voice of 
their mother behind them, desiring her elder son to stop and wait for her, saying 
that she wished to give the breast to his brother; then again Mash-kwa-sha-kwong's 
voice encouraging his sons to fly for their lives and saying that if their mother 
overtook them she would surely kill them. 

In the evening of the second day the boys prepared to encamp, and the noise 
of combat on high ceased; on placing a small piece of the coal on the ground 
a log and some fire-wood was let down as on the preceding night, and the fire was 
kindled, and then the raccoon placed on it for their food. This was fulfilling the 
promise made ])y their father, that they would be provided for during their flight. 
The beaver's tooth was here thrown away, and this is the cause why the northern 
country now al)0'inds with beaver, and also the innumerable little lakes and 
marshes, and consequently the rugged and tedious traveling now experienced. 

On the third day the boys resumed their flight and threw away their bone, and it 



•Note by Mr. Oeorpp John.-Jtnn. from whom this tale was received.— Anything of the 
kind, or a similar noise heard, is attrilmted by the Indian to this dav as an indication 
of the contention l)et\veen Mash-kwa-sha-kwonpr and his pursuers, and "hence a prelude to 
wars and contentions among the nations of the world. 



THE HIST(3RIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 321 

became a high, rocky, mountainous ridge, the same now seen on the north shore 
of these straits (St. Mary's), which was a great obstacle in the way of the woman 
of the Head, for this was now her name, because that part alone remained of her 
whole frame, and with it she was incessantly uttering determinations to kill her 
elder son- the boys finally reached the fishing place known as the eddy of Wah- 
zah-zhwing at the rapids of Bawating (Sault Ste. Marie), situated on the north 
shore of the river. Here Mash-kwa-sha-kwong told his sons that he had himself 
been overtaken in his flight by his pursuers and killed; and he appeared to them 
in the shape of a red-headed woodpecker, or a mama. This is a bird that is seldom 
or never attacked by birds of prey, for no vestiges of his remains are ever seen 
or found by the Indian hunter. "Now, my sons," said the red-headed woodpecker, 
"I have brought you to this river; you will now see your grandfather, and he will 
convey you across to the opposite side." Then the boys looked to the southern 
shore of the river, and they saw in the middle of the rapid an Oshuggay standing 
on a rock- to the Oshuggay the boys spoke, and accosted him as their grandfather, 
requesting him to carry them across the river Bawating. The Oshuggay, stretching 
his long neck over the river to the place where the boys stood, told them to get 
upon his head and neck, and again stretching to the southern shore, he landed the 
boys in safety upon a prairie; the crane was seen walking in state up and down 

the prairie. ^. ^ ■, 

The persevering mother soon arrived at Wah-zah-hawing. and immediately re- 
quested the Oshuggay to cross her over; stating that she was in pursuit of her 
children and that she wished to overtake them; but the Oshuggay seemed well aware 
of her characer, and objected to conveying her across, giving her to understand 
that she was a lewd and bad woman; he continued giving her a long moral lecture 
upon the course she had pursued and the bad results to mankind in consequence, 
such as quarrels, murders, deaths, and hence widowhood. 

The woman of the Head persisted in her request of being conveyed across. Objec- 
tions and entreaties followed. She talked as if she were still a woman whose favors 
were to be sought, and he as if he were above such favors. After this dialogue 
the Oshuggay said that he would convey her across on the condition that she would 
adhere strictly to his injunctions; he told her not to touch the bare part of his 
head but to get upon the hollow or crocked part of his neck; to this she agreed, 
and got on. The Oshuggay then withdrew his long neck to about half way across, 
when feeling that she had forgotten her pledge, he dashed her head upon the rocks, 
and the small fish that were so abundant instantly fed upon the bram and frag- 
ments of the skull and became large white fish. "A fish." said the Oshuggay. 
"that from this time forth shall be abundant, and remain in these rapids to 
feed the Indians and their issue from generation to generation." 

After this transaction of the Oshuggay's landing the boys safely across, and 
dashing the woman's head upon the rocks, he spake to the crane, and mutually con- 
sulting one another in relation to Mash-kwa-sha-kwong's sons, they agreed to invite 
two women from the eastward of the tribe of the Wassissig, and the two lads took 
them for wives. The Oshuggay plucked one of his largest wing feathers and gave 
it to the elder boy, and the crane likewise did the same, giving his feather to the 
younger- they were told to consider the feathers as their sons after this; one 
feather appeared like an Oshuggay and the other like a young crane. By and by 
they appeared like human beings to the lads. Thus the alliance was formed with, 
the wassissig, and the circumstances of the Oshuggay and crane interesting them- 
selves in behalf of the boys, and the gift to them of their feathers and the result. 
is the origin of the Indian Totem. 
41 



322 ANNUAL AJEETING, 1902. 

Here Mash-kwa-sha-kwong's sons were told that they would be considered as 
chieftains, and that this office would be hereditary and continue in their generations. 
After this they multiplied exceedingly and became strong and powerful. About this 
time the Obinangoes (or the bears' totem) came down from Shaugah-wah-mickong, 
near the extremity of Lake Superior. On their way eastward they were surprised 
on reaching Bawating to find such a numerous population of human beings; they 
were not aware of its being in existence; fear came upon the Obinangoes, and 
they devised the plan of securing friendship with the Oshuggays and Cranes by 
adopting and claiming a relationship with them, and calling them their grandsons. 
This claim was yielded, and they were permitted to remain at Bawating upon the 
score of relationship, thus happily attained. The Obinangoes eventually emigrated 
eastv/ard and settled upon the northern coast of Lakes Huron and Ontario. 

Population increased so rapidly at Bawating that it was necessary to form new 
villages, some settling on the Garden river, some upon the Pakaysaugauegan river, 
and others upon the Island of St. Joseph's and upon the Menashkong bay and 
Mashkotay Saugie river. 

About this time a person in the shape of a human being came down from the 
sky; his clothing was exceedingly pure and white; he was seated as it were in a 
nest with a very fine cord attached to it, by which this mysterious person was let 
down, and the cord or string reached heaven. He addressed the Indians in a very 
humane, mild, and compassionate tone, saying that they were very poor and needy, 
but telling them that they were perpetually asleep, and this was caused by the 
Mache Monedo who was in the midst of them, and leading them to death an5 
ruin. 

This my.sterious personage informed them also that above, where he came from, 
there was no night, that the inhabitants never slept, that it was perpetually day and 
they required no sleep; that Kezha Monedo was their light. He then invited four 
of the Indians to ascend up with him, promising that they would be brought back 
in safety; that an opportunity would thereby present itself to view the beauty 
of the sky, or heavens. But the Indians doubted and feared lest the cord should 
break, because it appeared to them so small. They did not believe it possible it 
could bear their weight. AVith this objection they excused themselves. They were, 
however, again assured that the cord was sufficiently strong, and that Kezha Monedo 
had the power to make it so. Yet the Indians doubted and feared, and did not 
accompany the messenger sent down to them. After this refusal the mysterious 
person produced a small bow and arrows with which he shot at the Indians in 
different parts of their bodies; the result was the killing of multitudes of small 
white worms, which he showed to them, telling them that they were the Mache 
Monedo which caused them to sleep, and prevented their awakening from their 
death-like state. 

This divine messenger then gave to the Indians laws and rules whereby they 
should be guided; first, to love and fear Kezha Monedo, and next, that they must 
love one another, and he charitable and hospitable: and finally, that they must 
not covet their neighbors' property, but acquire it by labor and honest industry. He 
then instituted the grand medicine or metay we win dance; this ceremony was to ' 
be observed annually, and with due solemnity, and the Indians, said Nabinoi, 
experienced much good from it; but unfortunately, the foolish young men were 
cheated by Mache Monedo, who caused them to adopt the Wabano dance and its 
ceremonies. This latter is decidedly an institution of the sagemaus, or evil 
spirits, and this was finally introduced into the metay we wining (i. e., medicine 
dance), and thereby corrupted it. 

The old chief continued his moral strain thus: While the Indians were instructed 
by the heavenly messenger they were told that it would snow continually for the 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 323 

space of five years, winter and summer, and the end would then be nigh at hand;- 
and again, that it would rain incessantly as many winters and summers more, 
which would cause the waters to rise and overflow the earth, destroying trees and 
all manner of vegetation. After this, ten winters and summers of drought would 
follow, drying up the land, and mostly the lakes and rivers; not a cloud would 
be seen during this period. The earth will become so dry, that it will then burn 
up with fire of itself, and it will also burn the waters to a certain depth, until 
it attains the first created earth and waters. Then the good Indians will rise from 
death to enjoy a nev/ earth, filled with an abundance of all manner of living crea- 
tures. The only animal which will not be seen is the beaver. The bad Indians 
will not enjoy any portion of the new earth; they will be condemned and given to 
the evil spirits. 

Four generations, he went on to say, have now passed away since that brotherly 
love and charity, form^erly known, still existed among the Indians. There was 
in those ancient times an annual meeting among the Indians, resembling the 
French New Year's Day, which was generally observed on the new moon's first 
appearance, Gitchy Monedo gesus. The Indians of one village would visit those of 
another, and sometimes meet one another dancing; and on those occasions they 
would exchange bows and arrows, their rude axes, awls, and kettles, and their 
clothing. This was an annual festival, which was duly observed by them. lii 
those days the Indians lived happily; but everything is now changed to the Indian 
mind, indicating the drawing near and approach of the end of time. The Indians 
who still adhere to the laws of the heavenly messenger experience happiness; and, 
on the contrary, concluded the old man, those who are wicked and adhere to the 
Wabano institution, generally meet with their reward; and it is singular to say 
that they generally come to their end by accidents such as drowning, or miserable 
deaths. 

He then reverted to the former part of his story. The Oshuggays and the 
Cranes quarreled, and this quarrel commenced on a trivial point. It appears that 
the Cranes took a pole, without leave, from the Oshuggays, and they broke the 
pole; this circumstance led to a separation. The Oshuggays emigrated south, and 
are now known as the Shawnees. 



BOSH-KWA-DOSH. 

There was once a man who found himself alone in the world. He knew not 
whence he came, nor who were his parents; and he wandered about, from place to 
place, in search of something. At last he became wearied and fell asleep. He 
dreamed that he heard a voice saying, "Nosis," that is, my grandchild. When 
he awoke he actually heard the word repeated, and looking around he saw a tiny 
little animal hardly big enough to be seen on the plain. "While doubting whether 
the voice could come from such a diminutive source, the little animal said to 
him, "My grandson, you will call me Bosh-kwa-dosh. Why are you so desolate? 
Listen to me and you shall find friends and be happy. You must take me up 
and bind me to your body and never put me aside, and success in life shall attend 
you." He obeyed the voice, sewing up the little animal in the folds of a string, 
or narrow belt, which he tied around his body, at his navel. He then set out 
in search of some one like himself, or other object. He walked a long tirne in 
woods without seeing man or animal. He seemed all alone in the world. At 
length he came to a place where a stump was cut, and on going over a hill he 
described a large town in a plain. A wide road led through the middle of it; but 
what seemed strange was, that on one side there were no Inhabitants in the 



324 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

lodges, while the other side was thic&ly ifihabited. He walk'<&i DcyM/j' into the 
town. 

The inhabitants came out and said: "Why here is the being we iave' fe^eard so 
much of — here is Anish-in-a-ba. See his eyes and his teeth in a haJf eii>el» — see 
the Wyaukenawbedaid. See his bowels, how they are formed;" for it secerns tliey 
could look through him. The king's son, the Mujekewis, was particularly kinc? to 
him, and calling him brother-in-law, commanded that he should be taken to 
his father's lodge and received with attention. The king gave him one of hi^ 
daughters. These people (who are supposed to be human but whose rank in 
the scale of being is left equivocal) passed much of their time in play and sports 
and trials of various kinds. When some time had passed, and he had become 
refreshed and rested, he was invited to join in these sports. The first test which 
they put him to was the trial of frost. At some distance was a large body of 
frozen water, and the trial consisted in lying down naked on the ice and seeing 
who could endure the longest. He went out with two young men who began 
by pulling off their garments and lying down on their faces. He did likewise, only 
keeping on the narrow magic belt with the tiny little animal sewed in it; for he 
felt that in this alone was to be his reliance and preservation. His competitors 
laughed and tittered during the early part of the night, and amused themselves 
by thoughts of his fate. Once they called out to him, but he made no reply. He 
felt a manifest warmth given out by his belt. About midnight, finding they 
were still, he called out to them in return, "What!" said he, "are you benumbed 
already; I am but just beginning to feel a little cold." All was silence. He, how- 
ever, kept his position till early daybreak, when he got up and went to them. 
They were both quite dead, and frozen so hard that the flesh had bursted out 
under their finger-nails, and their teeth stood out. As he looked more closely, 
what was his surprise to find them both transformed into buffalo cows. He 
tied them together and carried them towards the village. As he came in sight, 
those who had wished his death were disappointed, but the Mudjekewis, who was 
really his friend, rejoiced. "See!" said he, "but one person approaches; it is my 
brother-in-law." He then threw down the carcasses in triumph, but it was found by 
their death he had restored two inhabitants to the before empty lodges, and he after- 
wards perceived that every one of these beings, whom he killed, had the like effect, 
so that the depopulated part of the village soon became filled with people. 

The next test they put him to was the trial of speed. He was challenged to 
the race ground, and began his career with one whom he thought to be a man; 
but everything was enchanted here, for he soon discovered that his competitor 
was a large black bear. The animal outran him, tore up the ground, and sported 
before him and put out its large claws as if to frighten him. He thought of his 
little guardian spirit in the belt, and wishing to have the swftness of the Kakake, 
i. €., sparrow hawk, he found himself rising from the ground, and with the speed 
of this bird he outwent his rival and won the race, while the bear came up exhausted 
and lolling out his tongue. His friend, the Mudjekewis, stood ready with his war- 
club at the goal, and the moment the bear came up, dispatched him. He then 
turned to the assembly, who had wished his friend and brothers' death, and after 
reproaching them, he lifted up his club and began to slay them on every side. 
They fell in heaps on all sides; but it was plain to be seen, the moment they fell, 
that they were not men but animals — foxes, wolves, tigers, lynxes, and other 
kinds, lay thick around the Mudjekewis. 

Still the villagers were not satisfied. They thought the trial of frost had not 
been fairly accomplished and wished it repeated. He agreed to repeat it, but 
being fatigued with the race, he undid his guardian belt and laying it under his 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 



325 



head fell asleep. When he awoke he felt refreshed, and feeling strong in his own 
strength he went forward to renew the trial on the ice, but quite forgot the belt, 
nor did it all occur to him when he awoke, or when he lay down to repeat the 
trial About midnight his limbs became stiff, the blood soon ceased to circulate, 
and he was found in the morning a stiff corpse. The victors took him up and 
carried him to the village where the loudest tumult of victorious joy was made, 
and they cut the body into a thousand pieces, that each one might eat a piece. 
The Mudjekewis bemoaned his fate, but his wife was inconsolable. She lay in 
a state of partial distraction in the lodge. As she lay there, she thought she heard 
some one groaning. It was repeated through the night, and in the morning she 
carefully scanned the place, and running her fingers through the grass, she dis- 
covered the secret belt, on the spot where her husband had last reposed. 
"Aubishin," cried the belt— that is, untie me, or unloose me. Looking carefully 
she found' the small seam which enclosed the tiny little animal. It cried out the 
more earnestlv, "Aubishin!" and when she had carefully ripped the seams, she 
beheld, to her surprise, a minute, naked little beast, smaller than the smallest 
new-born mouse, without any vestige of hair, except at the tip of its tail; it 
could crawl a few inches, but reposed from fatigue. It then went forward again. 
At each moment it would pupowee, that is to say, shake itself like a dog, and at 
each shake it became larger. This it continued until it acquired the strength 
and size of a middle-sized dog, when it ran off. 

The mysterious dog ran to the lodges about the village, looking for the bones 
of his friend which he carried to a secret place, and as fast as he found them 
arrano-ed all 'in their natural order. At length he had formed all the skeleton 
complete except the heel bone of one foot. It so happened that two sisters were 
out of the camp, according to custom, at the time the body was cut up, and this 
heel was sent out to them. The dog hunted every lodge, and being satisfied 
that it was not to be found in the camp, he sought it outside of it, and tound 
the lodge of the two sisters. The younger sister was pleased to see him, and 
admired and patted the pretty dog, but the elder sat mumbling the very heel- 
bone he was seeking, and was surly and sour, and repelled the dog, although he 
looked most wistfully up in her face, while she sucked the bone from one side of 
her mouth to the other. At last she held it in such a manner that it made her 
cheek stick out, when the dog, by a quick spring, seized the cheek, and tore cheek 
and bone away and fled. 

He now completed the skeleton, and placing himself before it. uttered a hollow, 
low long-drawn-out howl, when' the bones came compactly together. He then 
modulated his howl, when the bones knit together and became tense. The third 
howl brought sinews upon them, and the fourth, flesh. He then turned his head 
upwards, looking into the sky, and gave a howl, which caused every one in the 
village to startle and the ground itself to tremble, at which the breath entered 
into his body and he first breathed and then arose. "Hy kow! I have overslept 
myself." he exclaimed, "I will be too late for the trial." "Trial!" said the dog 
"I told you never to let me be separate from your body; you have neglected 
this You were defeated and your frozen body cut into a thousand pieces and 
scattered over the village, but my skill has restored you. Now I will declare 
myself to you, and show who and what I am!" 

He then began to pupowee, or shake himself, and at every shake he grew. His 
body became heavy and massy, his legs thick and long, with big clumsy ends, or 
feet He still shook himself and rose and swelled. A long snout grew from his 
head and two great shining teeth out of his mouth. His skin remained as it 
was ' naked, and only a tuft of hair grew on his tail. He rose up above the 



326 



ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 



trees. He was enormous. "I should fill the earth," said he, "were I to exert my 
utmost power, and all there is on the earth would not satisfy me to eat. Neither 
could it fatten me or do me good. I should want more. It were useless, there- 
fore, and the gift I have, 1 will bestow on you. The animals shall henceforth be 
your food. They were not designed to feed on man, neither shall they hereafter 
do it, but shall feed him, and he only shall prey on beasts. But you will respect 
me, and not eat my kind. 

ODJIBWA FAIRY TALES.* 

There was once a little boy, remarkable for the smallness of his stature. He 
was living alone with his sister, older than himself. They were orphans; they 
lived in a beautiful spot on the lake shore; many large rocks were scattered 
around their habitation. The boy never grew larger as he advanced in years. 
One day, in winter, he asked his sister to make him a ball to play with along shore 
on the clear ice. She made one for him, but cautioned him not to go too far. Off 
he went in high glee, throwing his ball before him, and running after it at full 
speed; and he went as fast as he could. At last his ball flew to a great distance; 
he followed it as fast as he could. After he had run for some time he saw four 
dark substances on the ice straight before him. When he came up to the spot he 
was surprised to see four large, tall men lying on the ice, spearing fish. When 
he went up to them, the nearest looked up and in turn was surprised to see such 
a diminutive being, and turning to his brothers, he said, "Tia! look! see what 
a little fellow is here." After they had all looked a moment, they resumed 
their position, covered their heads, intent in searching for fish. The boy thought 
to himself, they imagine me too insignificant for common courtesy, because they 
are tall and large; I shall teach them, notwithstanding, that I am not to be treated 
so lightly. After they were covered up the boy saw they had each a large trout 
lying beside them. He slyly took the one nearest him, and placing his fingers 
in the gills, and tossing his ball before him, ran off at full speed. When the 
man to whom the fish belonged looked up, he saw his trout sliding away as if of 
itself, at a great rate — the boy being so small he was not distinguished from the 
fish. He addressed his brothers and said, "See how that tiny boy has stolen my fish; 
what a shame it is he should do so." The boy reached home, and told his sister to 
go out and get the fish he had brought home. She exclaimed, "Where could you 
have got it? I hope you have not stolen it." "Oh, no," he replied, "I found it 
on the ice." "How," persisted the sister, "could you have got it there?" "No 
matter," said the boy, "go and cook it." He disdained to answer her again, but 
thought he would one day show her how to appreciate him. She went to the 
place he left it, and there, indeed, she found a monstrous trout. She did as 
she was bid, and cooked it for that day's consumption. Next morning he went 
off again as at first. When he came near the large men, who fished every day, he 
threw his ball with such force that it rolled into the ice-hole of the man of whom 
he had stolen the day before. As he happened to raise himself at the time, the 
boy said, "Neejee, pray hand me my ball." "No, indeed," answered the man, 
"I shall not," and thrust the ball under the ice. The boy took hold of his arm 
and broke it in two in a moment, and threw him to one side, and picked up his 
ball, which had bounded back from under the ice, and tossed it as usual before 
him. Outstripping it in speed, he got home and remained within till the next 
morning. The man whose arm he had broken hallooed out to his brothers, and 
told them his case, and deplored his fate. They hurried to their brother, and as 



*(Told by Mrs. Jane Johnston, afterwards Mrs. H. R. Schoolcraft.) 




^' iiT°?,„„!„*:i""'^' .r Thp .Tnlinsion residence, now Q. Store. 



A. Block House. 

B. Magazine. 

C. Palisade 18 feet hit,'h. 

D. Old graves 

E. Old J esuit Cemetery. 

F. Fur Press. 

G. Barns. 

H. Warehouses. 

I. Dock on which Governor Cass 

landed, 1820, and U. S. troops, 

1822. 



.J The Joluision residence, now- 
owned by Mr. E. S. Wheeler. 
K. E^'isk House. 
L. Mrs. Cadotte's House. 
M. M. DeBois' House. 
N. Tarder J. Drew wintered 181,5. 
O. Men's House. 
P. Dwelling. 



Q. Store. 

K. Carpenter Shops. 

S. Blacksmith .Shop built 179.=>. 

T. Milk and Ice House. 

U. Root House. 

V. Wine Cellar. 

W, U. S. Fence. 

X. Path^. 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 



327 



loud as they could roar threatened vengeance on the morrow, knowing the boy's 
speed that they could not overtake him, and he was near out of sight; yet he 
heard their threats and awaited their coming in perfect indifference. The four 
brothers the next morning prepared to take their revenge. Their old mother 
begged them not to go. "Better," said she, "that one only should suffer than that 
all should perish; for he must be a monedo, or he could not perform such feats." 
But her sons would not listen; and taking their wounded brother along, started 
for the boy's lodge, having learnt that he lived at the place of rocks. The boy's 
sister thought she heard the noise of snow-shoes on the crusted snow at a distance 
advancing. She saw the large, tall men coming straight to their lodge, or rather 
cave, for they lived in a large rock. She ran in with great fear, and told her 
brother the fact. He said, "Why do you mind them? Give me something to eat." 
"How can you think of eating at such a time?" she replied. "Do as I request 
you, and be quick." She then gave him his dish, which was a large mis-qua-dace 
shell, and he commenced eating. Just then the men came to the door, and were 
about lifting the curtain placed there, when the boy-man turned his dish up-side- 
down, and immediately the door was closed with a stone; the men tried hard with 
their clubs to crack it; at length they succeeded in making a slight opening. When 
one of them peeped in with one eye, the boy-man shot his arrow into his eye 
and brain, and he dropped down dead. The others, not knowing what had hap- 
pened their brother, did the same, and all fell in like manner; their curiosity was 
so great to see w^hat the boy was about. So they all shared the same fate. After 
they were killed the boy-man told his sister to go out and see them. She opened 
the door, but feared they w^ere not dead, and entered back again hastily, and told 
her fears to her brother. He went out and hacked them in small pieces, saying, 
"Henceforth let no man be larger than you are now." So men became of the 
present size. When spring came on, the boy-ma;i said to his sister, "Make me 
a new set of arrows and bow." She obeyed, as he never did anything himself of a 
nature that required manual labor, though he provided for their sustenance. After 
she made them, she again cautioned him not to shoot into the lake; but regardless 
of all admonition, he, on purpose, shot his arrow into the lake, and waded some 
distance till he got into deep water, and paddled about for his arrow, so as to attract 
the attention of his sister. She came in haste to the shore, calling him to return, 
but instead of minding her he called out, "Ma-mis-quon-je-gun-a, be-nau-wa-con- 
zhe-shin," that is, "you of the red fins come and swallow me." Immediately that 
monstrous fish came and swallowed him; and seeing his sister standing on the 
shore in despair, he hallooed out to her, "Me-zush-ke-zin-ance." She wondered what 
he meant. But on reflection she thought it must be an old mockesin. She accord- 
ingly tied the old mockesin to a string and fastened it to a tree. The fish said to 
the boy-man, under water, "What is that floating?" The boy-man said to the fish, 
"Go, take hold of it, swallow it as fast as you can." The fish darted towards the 
old shoe and swallowed it. The boy-man laughed in himself, but said nothing till 
the fish was fairly caught; he then took hold of the line and began to pull himself 
and fish to shore. The sister, who was watching, was surprised to see so large a 
fish; and hauling it ashore she took her knife and commenced cutting it open! 
When she heard her brother's voice inside of the fish saying, "Make haste and 
release me from this nasty place," his sister was in such haste that she almost hit 
his head with her knife; but succeeded in making an opening large enough for her 
brother to get out. When he was fairly out, he told his sister to cut up the fish 
and dry it, as it would last a long time for their sustenance, and said to her never, 
never more to doubt his ability in any way. So ends the story. 



328 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

TO HOPE. 

(By the late John Johnston, Esq.) 

Hope, deceiver of my soul, 

Who with lures, from day to day, 

Hast permitted years to roll, ' 

Almost unpreceived away. 

Now no longer try thine art. 

Fools alone thy power shall own. 

Who, with simple, vacant heart. 
Dream of bliss to mortals known. 

Every effort have I try'd, 

All that reason could suggest. 

Cruel? cease then to deride 
One by fortune still unblest. 

Ah! yet stay, for when thou'rt gone, 
Where shall sorrow lay her head? 

Where, but on the chilling stone 
That marks the long-forgotten dead. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTERS 
of the 

LATE JOHN JOHNSTON, ESQ., 

of the Falls of St. Mary's, Michigan. 

Introductory Remarks by Henry R. Schoolcraft, 1844. 

Few men have connected their names more widely or reputably with the red race 
of America than the late John Johnston, Esq., to whose life the present lines are 
devoted. A native of Ireland, he came to this country the year after the adoption 
of the constitution, a young man, having been brought up in ease and affluence, 
mixed freely in the polished circles of his time, and knowing nothing of society or 
the world, but what he had seen in these circles or read of in books. In a spirit of 
honorable adventure he went up into the region of the great lakes, engaged in the 
alluring and then half chivalrous pursuit of the fur trade; but intending in a few 
years to go back to his estate, then in the possession of his mother. In Antrim. With 
the elasticity of spirits of his countrymen, and the love of novelty, independence, 
and romance, of which the region in question then furnished stimulants, he pursued 
this business till he had assimilated his habits to it. He saw in it the means of 
honorable independency, without submitting to the actual drudgery of the exchanges 
and traffic at the interior village. His first position was at Chagoimegon, near the 
southwestern head of Lake Superior, where he married a daughter of a celebrated 
warrior, who was the reigning chief. He then fixed his residence at the Falls, 
or as it is commonly called by Americans, the Sault of St. Mary's. In this position 
he exercised that peculiar species of factorship (although he was himself the 
outfitter and not concerned with a company), which is necessary to conduct a 
department of the Indian trade. From his connection with the leading chief, his 
frank and honorable dealing, the reception he always gave the red men, and his 



J 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 



329 



general intelligence, he exercised a wide influence over the native tribes. His 
original letters on coming out. and his known connection at home, had given him 
a reputable standing in the high government and business circles of Montreal 
and Quebec. His residence at St. Mary's was known as the seat of hospitality. 
He had early taught the forest maid, whom he had selected and placed at the 
head of his house, the duty of refined hospitality-a duty, it may be said easily 
engrafted on the native stock; and as his children grew up. they soon became 
adepts in all the arts and attentions of receiving and entertaining company. The 
greatest pains were taken with their education and manners. He possessed a choice 
library of standard English works. He was a man of taste, and great fondness for 
reading He amused the deep solitude of his position, during the winters, in this 
way and sometimes indulged in composition. In this manner his house became, 
in fact, a seat of refinement in the heart of the wilderness. And in this position 
with frequent journeys, local and foreign, he passed the remaining eight and thirty 

This'pe'ri^f covers a very interesting era in our national history. Jt embraces 
the coming on. progress, and termination of the war of 1812, m some of the events 
of wh^h he became involved; the survey and settlement of the boundary lines 
on that wild frontier, extending to north latitude 49°. and the incipient mov^ 
ments in our Indian affairs, which have eventuated in large cessions of territory 
by the tribes, and the acceptance by most of them of the plan of a removal and 
colonization ;est of the Mississippi. Mr. Johnston himself ever ^elt the deepes 
interest in the fate and fortunes of the race, in plans for the introduction of 
education and Christianity amongst them, and in their general exaltation m mind 
and morals, and restoration to all possible political rights. 

It is owi^g to these considerations that I have introduced the present paper, 
wh ch will, in the sequel, be preceived to connect itself ^^timately with the cond. 
tion character, and history of the Ojibwas. and of a numerous familj of kindred 
trib;sMv acquaintance with Mr. Johnston commenced in 1822. and was continued 
from th^t t'le to the period of his death. Convinced that his reminscences of 
Hfpwould present subjects of future and deep interest. I frequently solicited his 
Tdertakin ' t but ow ng chiefly, if not entirely, to the plea of ill-health and 
^htnic pa^;s, he deferred it till his last year, and -fortunately as it is tho.,h, 
for this species of literature, he did not live to complete it. He chose the torm 
of 1 Uers he said, to separate his labor into distinct portions, the completion of 
one of Which encouraged him to begin another. They are addressed to me. 

LETTER I. 

St. Mary's Falls, 14 Jan.. 1828. 
My Dear Sir— I at length have made up my mind to comply with your request 
and that of ^y beloved Jane, by throwing together a few recollections respecting 
my fam ly, and of my own life; subjects that could not possibly have any interest 
with the world, and are only suited to the eye of friendship and of love. 

is to my father's family I know nothing but what I have heard in conversation 
befwee^ my mother and my aunt Nancy Johnston from whom ^-rn^^ f^ JY 
great grandfather John, left Scotland after the massacre of Glencoe under 
W mam the third. He. and I believe his sister, married ^-'^2:tT:^^ in ^^r^^^ 
of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, and Mussinden of Hernngflee Hall, in Norfolk^ 
Mv Grandfather William possessed an estate in the county of Antrim, held by 
Sse imd r the Earl of Donnegal. and an estate in the county ^o--;/;^f/^ 
N^wtonbreda. bordering on the estate of Lord Dungannon. to whom he sold it as 

42 



330 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

being contiguous to the demesne of Belvoir Castle. My eldest uncles, Leathes, John 
and Michael, were educated at the famous school of Armagh, along with Mr. 
Macartney and Mr. Carleton. The first became an Earl, and the second Viscount 
Dorchester. My grandfather left his house of Newforge and came to reside ift 
Belfast, for the education of his younger children. Having a considerable sum of 
money on hand from the sale of his Newtonbreda estate, he planned and executed 
the water works of Belfast, on the security of a lease of 41 years. The then Lord 
Donnegal being insane, his tutors could only grant leases, but the next heir pledged 
himself and family at a public dinner given by the town to my grandfather, that the 
works should be granted in perpetuity as soon as the circumstances of the family 
would admit of it. But this word of honor, so publicly plighted, was afterwards 
shamefully broken; and the reason adduced for it was that from the increased 
growth and opulence of the town, the water works gave an influence nearly equal to 
that of the lord of the soil, though it was allowed by all that the increase, prosper- 
ity, and health of the place was chiefly owing to the abundant supply of an article . 
so essential to health and manufacture. My grandfather's younger children were 
six, two sons and four daughters. One of his daughters married the Rev. Wm. 
Saurin, rector of the town, a second married an opulent merchant, whose name 
was Johnson, a third married the Rev. Robert Heyland, rector of Colorain, and 
the fourth, my dear aunt Nancy, gave up the pleasures of a fashionable life to live 
with my mother, when a widow, and assist her with her income and in our educa- 
tion. My uncles Leathes and John went early to their uncle Leathes, who, inde- 
pendent of his estates, had a good deal of interest from always representing the 
Borough of St. Edmunds Bury in parliament. They both went into the army; 
Leathes had soon a company in the guards, and John in a marching regiment; 
but their early introduction into fashionable life had a fatal effect on the fortune 
of both, for they soon plunged into all the dissipation and extravagance of the 
period; and got so much embarrassed that they joined their uncle in cutting off 
the entail of the estates, and for 25,000 pounds and an annuity, to one of 500 
pounds, and the other of 200 pounds per annum, sold their right of inheritance to 
their uncle, who bequeathed the whole to his natural children, who are now in 
full possession of both estates. My uncle Michael had a chaplaincy in the army, 
and died of consumption. Leathes married the daugther of the late Sir Benjamin 
Bloomfield, and had a family of four sons and a daughter; he then went out to 
India, where he died a lieutenant colonel. John, after losing three or four com- 
missions, died at last a lieutenant colonel of marines, instead of being an old 
lieutenant general. I have never seen any of my uncle Leathes' children, I only 
know that his eldest son William is now a lieutenant general of engineers, re- 
siding at College Green, Bristol, after having spent many years in the West Indies. 
The two youngest sons of my grandfather, William and Mussinden, chose the navy 
and army for their professions. They made a tour into Scotland, where my uncle 
Mussinden raised a company in the neighborhood of Glencoe in a few weeks. 
They then visited Edinburgh, and were severally presented with the freedom 
of the city. I remember the beautiful illuminated vellum, with large green wax 
seals appended, which my sisters cut up to make patterns for working bobbin 
lace when we were children. William was a midshipman at the taking of Louis- 
burgh, I think, in 1759. As soon as peace was proclaimed he quit the navy, and was 
appointed surveyor of Port Rush, in the north of Ireland. The family were all 
grown up and dispersed when my grandfather was made collector of Colerain. 
He had lost his first wife for some years, and being tired of living alone made 
a visit to Liverpool, where he married a widow lady of high connections, but 
before embarking for Ireland he had to pay 800 pounds sterling, for debts she had 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO."" 331 

formerly contracted. I believe he only lived two or three years after his second 
marriage. About this time my father married Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of 
John McNeil, Esq., of Coulreshkan, in English, Wheatland. He got as a marriage 
portion the reversion of the quarter land of Craige, less than three miles from 
the Giant's causeway, a beautiful situation and fine land, which did not come into 
my mother's possession till the expiration of twenty years after signing the mar- 
riage articles. I was born the 25th of August, 1762, and was sent to school in 
Colerain in my seventh year. "When I left home my father was on his death bed, 
he had been much afflicted with dyspepsia, for which his friend and physician, 
a Doctor Stephenson of Colerain, had administered mercury without informnig 
him of it. He had been on a visit to a friend beyond the river Bush, and on re- 
turning in the evening found the tide in, and rather than go two miles farther up 
to a bridge, he swam his horse over, and caught a cold which immediately fell upon 
his lungs, and in less than three months carried him to an untimely grave in his 
43d year, to the irreparable loss of his family, and regret of all who knew him. 
My mother was left a widow with two sons and three daughters. Jane was the 
oldest. I was the next, Eliza, yet living, the third, William the fourth, and Charlotte, 
the youngest and most beautiful, but the earliest in her grave, being carried 
off by the smallpox in her seventh year. I could long dwell on her sweetness of 
temper, her early piety, her beauty and her grace, and above all her distinguished 
love for me, but the subject has ever been too painful for me. And now my dear 
sir, having given you nearly all the knowledge I possess respecting my family, I 
shall conclude this hasty sketch by promising that when another scribbling fit 
comes on I shall again renew the subject, though I feel it will become more 
irksome to me as my picture gradually fills the foreground. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

JOHN JOHNSTON. 

LETTER II. 

St. Mary's Falls, 19 Jan., 1S2S. 
My Dear Sir: — In compliance with my promise, I resume the subject of my 
"Simple Annals." My mother's income was much circumscribed by the death of 
my father, so much so, that she was obliged to withdraw me from school in my 
tenth year. Instead of having a handsome income from three-fourths of the 
water works, which devolved on her and my aunt Nancy, such had been the mis- 
management, not to give it a harsher name, of the Rev. Robert Heyland, who had 
a fourth of the income, by his wife, that several sums were demanded of my 
mother and aunt, said to be expended in repairs over and above the rental, wliich 
was more than 400 pounds sterling a year. On my return from school I was 
examined by my aunt, who found that I neither knew Latin or English gram- 
matically, and could scarcely write my name; so much for an Irish Latin school; 
and that too kept by an Episcopalian clergyman! My aunt immediately set me 
on a course of English grammar, and of reading ancient and modern history. 1 
had a kind of tutor also for writing and arithmetic. To conquer the idle habits 
I had acquired for three years was no easy task, and perhaps no other person 
could have induced me to application, or have given me a taste for reading but 
my aunt, whose gentle and polished manners gained her alike our love and our 
respect. My dear mother's household cares gave her little time to attend to us, 
until after tea, when she, my aunt, and sisters sat down to work, and I read with 
them for two or three hours, which would have been very tiresome, but for inter- 
vals in which my mother and aunt pointed out the beauties of particular passages, 



332 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

and the virtues and vices of the different characters which history presented to 
us, and the consequent effect on their lives and fortunes. But the British classics 
and our best dramatists were to our young and just expanding minds a source of 
the purest delight. This state of innocent enjoyment and consequent happiness, 
continued, with little intermission, for five years, until I began to fancy myself 
a man, and that I ought to break through the trammels of female influence and 
control. These ideas were much strengthened by the conversation of servants and 
the country people in our neighborhood, who, as all the lower class of Ix'ish ever 
have been, are the most cunning and fulsome flatterers in the world. I now 
betook myself to coursing with greyhounds, shooting, fishing, etc., instead of taking 
the advantage offered me by the Rev. Robert Sturrock, of studying, at his Academy 
of White Park, within one mile of my mother's house, where he instructed some 
of the first gentlemen's sons of the kingdom; among whom were my two friends 
and neighbors, Edmund and Francis McNaughton; the eldest now a Lord of the 
Treasury, and member of Parliament for the county of Antrim; the second Sir 
Francis, at present Chief Justice of Calcutta; the Hon. Robert Stuart, afterwards 
too well known as Lord Castlei-eagh ; James Alexander, nephew to the Earl of 
Caldon, and nov/ an India Director and member of Parliament, with many more, 
whose subsequent history I am but little acquainted with. All the advantages of 
such society, and the instrucions of a man of exemplary piety, learning, and the 
most polished manners, who was on terms of friendship and good neighborhood 
with my mother and aunt, I foolishly abandoned for the pursuit of field sports and 
still more debasing gratifications. In my seventeenth year I was sent to Belfast 
to take charge of the water works, and for some time attended steadily to my 
business, by which means I raised the value of the property considerably; but I 
had still a great deal of idle time on my hands, and having sufficient means of 
indulging myself, I squandered my time and money in vanity and dissipation, 
with no other saving quality but a detestation of low and vulgar company, into 
which I was never led but once or twice, and for which I paid dearly both in 
purse and peace of mind. 

In the midst of all my folly and extravagance I still retained a love of reading. 
But unfortunately I had no guide or instructor to make a proper selection for me, 
so that the trash of a circulating library was read over with very little taste or 
discrimination, and was therefore a mere sacrifice of time. I as yet knew nothing 
of politics, and had been only taught that loyalty to my king was absolutely neces- 
sary to every gentleman. My ideas of love of country were vague. I thought 
obedience to the laws, and respect for the constitution, constituted all the duties of 
a patriot. I was too blind and ignorant to perceive that my country, properly 
speaking, had no constitution; and that the laws forced upon her by another 
state were unjust and oppressive, and studiously calculated to repress every effort 
at improvement or independence. I seldom or ever recollect dates, but believe 
volunteering was at its height about 1783 or 4; but I never would join any of their 
corps, being possessed with the idea that they were on the eve of rebellion, when 
only temperately, but firmly, demanding their just and natural rights, so long 
withheld by an ignorant, selfish, and jealous government. The corporation of 
Belfast now fixed their eyes on the water works as a means of greatly increasing 
their wealth and influence; and had art and address sufficient to induce the weak 
and unprincipled Earl of Donnegal to break the promise of his ancestor, to grant 
the property in perpetuity to my family. It is true the first lease was renewed 
when still there were ten or fifteen years unexpired, but the second was now draw- 
ing to a close, and I took advantage of his lordship's being on a visit to his Irish 
estates to solicit the fulfillment of his promise, or at least a renewal of the lease. 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE --SOO." 333 

But as I could not succeed, from the reasons already mentioned, 1 made up my 
mind not to remin a burden on my family, but to go abroad as soon as I could 
procure sufficient means. In the interim I sent out my dear brother William to 
New York, where he bound himself apprentice to a merchant of the name of 
Henry, who in two or three years failed, but was so pleased with him as to give 
him up his indentures. He then went into company with a Mr. Samuel Hill, 
brother to the Rev. Charles Hill, of Ballycastle, my particular friend. They did 
business for some time at New York, and then removed to Albany, where Mr. Hill 
married. As to myself, I continued my idle and debauched life for several years, 
until the lease of the water works was within four or five years of expiring, 
■when, finding that all my efforts to obtain justice from Lord Donnegal were un- 
availing, I, by the consent of all the parties concerned, raised 400 pounds on the 
remainder of the lease from Mr. Alexander, his lordship's agent for the Belfast, 
giving up the property as security; the remaining avail to be accounted for to my 
family, which by the way, was never done, and then prepared to leave the scene 
(Of my follies and misfortunes. In 1789 Lord Macartney came to visit his castle 
at Lisanore, within 14 miles of my mother's residence, where I waited on him with 
a letter of introducton from my aunt. He received me with great kindness, and 
after stating to him my disappointments at home, I mentioned my wish to go 
to India, from whence he had recently returned, and where of course his interest 
chiefly lay. He took me into his library and showed me a list of 26 persons he was 
bound to provide for, condescendingly adding, he had not advanced himself in 
the world without being under obligations to many friends, whose services it 
was his first duty to repay; he however said if I was determined to go to India 
in preference to any where else he would, during the winter, do everything he 
could to forward my wishes. He further remarked that we heard a great deal of 
those who came from India with fortunes, but not a word of the hundreds who 
fell victims to the climate, and the excesses into which young men were liable to 
be led in such a voluptuous country. I then proposed to go to Canada, in case of 
procuring letters to Lord Dorchester, the then Governor General. To this he in 
the most friendly manner assented, and said, though he himself was not on terms of 
intimacy with Lord D., his friends were, and that I should write to him when 
nearly ready to set out, when he would forward me letters from Lord Liverpool 
and Mr. Brook Watson, two of Lord D's best friends, whose recommendations 
would have the greatest weight with him. Accordingly in spring, as soon as 
my affairs were all arranged, -I wrote to his lordship, who in a post or two sent 
me the promised letters, accompanied with one from himself containing the most 
friendly advice and good wishes. And now that I have brought my brief and little 
eventful history to the eve of that step on which my subsequent fortune so entirely 
hinged, I shall lay down my pen and give you a little reprieve from the tedium 
of a recital so little interesting even to a partial ear. 

Believe me ever truly yours. 

JOHN JOHNSTON. 

LETTER III. 

St. Mary's Falls, 26 Feb.. 1828. 
My Dear Sir:— 111 health, indolence, and the pursuit of idle amusements, which 
only end in vanity and vexation of spirit, have diverted my attention from writing 
for some time past. But I now resume the subject with the hope of pursuing it 
with more steadiness and perseverance than I have hitherto done. I had many 
acquaintances in Belfast and the neighboring counties, which, while we are linked 



334 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

in the pursuit of pleasures, we are apt to call friends, but the moment a change 
takes place in our circumstances, the illusion vanishes, and as if touched by the 
spear of Ithurial, they soon start up in their proper form, and the chain of con- 
nection is broken forever. However, I had the consolation of two particular ex- 
ceptions, in my excellent and ever esteemed friends, Doctor McDonald and 
Narcissus Batt, over whom the lapse and change of circumstances have had no 
other effect than to prove that true honor and worth, such as theirs, are immutable. 
In the latter end of June, 1790, I embarked on board the Clara, Captain Collins, 
for New York. We were detained for several hours off Carickfergus in the middle 
of the night, by a naval officer and boat's crew, who took possession of the ship, 
and made a strict search for British seamen; though then at peace with the 
United States. I represented to the officer the cruelty and injustice of detaining 
an outward bound vessel with a fair wind, especially as the captain assured him 
that there was not a man of the description he sought for on board; but when I 
saw he was determined to detain the ship all night, I addressed a letter to the 
Marquis of Downshire, to whom I had the honor of being particularly known, 
stating the circumstances. I read the letter publicly, and prepared to send it by a 
gentleman just going ashore, but shortly after, "the man of brief authoi-ity," gave 
up the ship to the captain, and having eaten a snack and drunk a pint of half and 
half grog, he civilly bade us good night and a safe passage. I had never been at 
sea before, though bred up on the coast, which caused me to suffer more from 
seasickness than some of my fellow passengers. I lay down on the floor of the 
round house, from whence no inducement could tempt me to stir for nearly two 
days; at the expiration of which I found myself perfectly well, and as hungry as 
a hawk. I got a beefsteak and some porter, and never felt seasickness after. 
We were four who messed together in the round house with the captain, the Rev. 
Charles Gray of Coleraine; the Rev. Robert Cathcart, an old friend and neighbor, 
and a Mr. Mathews from Edinburgh. We fared as well as people at sea could pos- 
sibly wish, and had such an abundance of wine, porter and spirits, that I was 
enabled to bestow a large hamper of wine, spruce, beer, oranges and lemons, sent 
on board for me by my friend Mr. Batt, amongst the pasaengers in the hold, several 
of whom were sick. Our fare was only ten guineas each, though since risen to 
forty; such has been the advance in living within the last thirty years! We had 
a favorable passage until we arrived off the Azores, where we were chased by a 
sixty gun ship, which having hoisted Spanish and then French colors, induced the 
captain to believe was one of the ships of war presented to the Algerines by 
France. He altered his course and put before the wind, the ship repeatedly 
firing at us; but out vessel being a prime sailer, and light, we soon increased our 
distance, and the next morning, when scarcely visible, she altered her course 
and gave up the chase. The second or third day after, when crossing the Gulf 
stream, we were overtaken by a heavy gale, which raised a tremendous sea. In 
the night our cabin windows were stove in; we had two or three feet of water 
in the floor; trunks and boxes broke from their dealings; the poor people in the 
under berths were all afloat, and such a scene of terror and confusion took place 
as I shall never forget. Some were praying aloud, others confessing their sins 
others screaming from fear and pain, whilst escaping from drowning in their 
berths; and at every roll of the ship dashed into contact with trunks, chests and 
boxes. Amongst the latter sufferers was a Mrs. Lindsey, the wife of a clergyman 
from the Highlands of Scotland. Whilst sprawling on the floor she was struck 
in the head by an iron bound trunk, which laid it open for about three inches 
When candles came down, the dead lights lashed in, the scene exhibited such a 
mixture of frightful and ludicrous as fairly surpassed description; poor Mrs 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OP THE "SOO." 335 

Lindsey, who at best might have passed for one of the witches in Macbeth, now 
looked a perfect Hecate; her matted locks dripping with gore, and her vulgar 
unmeaning countenance distorted into a most unearthly grin. No one pitied her 
or her fanatic husband. He had made himself particularly obnoxious to me from 
his language to the captain when chased by the Algerine. He told him it was an 
act of cowardice to run away from any vessel whilst we were all Englishmen; 
with a great deal more of the most illiberal and vulgar abuse. The captain mildly 
answered that he could appeal to most of his men, who had sailed with him when 
commanding a privateer during the revolutionary war, whether he had ever 
evinced any signs of cowardice when in conflict with the enemy. But now, as 
accountable to his ov.ners for the ship, and to the passengers for their safety, he 
only performed his duty by avoiding danger, even supposing the vessel was not 
what we supposed her to be. I had at length to interfere, and sent the very Rev. 
Mr. Lindsey to his cabin rather precipitately. 

Nothing further occurred worth noting until we got in sight of Long Island, 
which, as we approached, the trees seemed to start one after another from the 
water, and the scenery every instant developed new and interesting beauties; but 
on rounding Governor's Island, when the city, like a splendid amphitheater, burst 
upon the view, I was absolutely transported with pleasure and delight. We 
came to our moorings after sunset, and I slept on board that I might put my foot 
on American ground the day of my birth; having just attained my 2Sth year. And 
as this begins a new epoch in my existence, I shall here conclude the story of my 

voj-age. 

Remaining ever truly and affectionately yours, 

JOHN JOHNSTON. 

LETTER IV. 

St. Mary's Fall, 1st March, 1828. 

My Dear Sir: — The first thing that struck me on entering New York was the 
kindness and urbanity of the people. I had asked my three fellow passengers to 
breakfast with me, and entered into the first coffee house we saw. The people 
told me they were not in the habit of providing meals for those who called at their 
house, but as we were strangers, they would give us the best breakfast they 
could; accordingly we had fresh rolls, excellent butter, fresh eggs, cream, tea, 
coffee, smoked beef and ham, for about one shilling sterling each, which I thought 
augured well for our future comfort whilst in the country. I then went and called 
upon Mrs. Sadler, in Water street, who was a distant connection of my mother's. 
I found her and Mr. Sadler himself, kind, friendly, and hospitable. They insisted 
on my residing with them whilst I remained in town. Mr. Sadler then took me to 
Hill and Johnston's store, and I soon found myself in the arms of the best and 
most affectionate of brothers. I passed a very happy week in New York, and saw 
in church the great and good Washington, to whom I should have had the honor 
of being introduced, had I been able to make a longer stay; but my passage was 
taken for Albany in a fine sloop, called the Hibernia, Captain Moor, where for 
the first time I saw my national fiag displayed in all its beauty. We had a de- 
lightful passage of three days, though we stopped repeatedly to put ashore pas- 
sengers and take in others. The romantic beauties of the Hudson have been so 
often and ably described, that any attempt on my part would be absolute presump- 
tion. Amongst my fellow passengers were several genteel well-bred ladies. The 
men were plain, friendly, and unaffected, and I found a very agreeable companion 



336 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

in a Mr. Noble, who was going to visit an estate his father had lately bought near 
Johnstown, in the center of the state of New York. 

We put up at Lewis's Hotel, then the first in Albany; where we spent four 
or five days very pleasantly. I one day took a stroll for about a mile up the hill 
from Mr. Lewis's, and saw five or six men, all armed with rifles, dash out of the 
wood to my left. I was at first a little startled at their uncouth appearance, but 
they accosted me civilly, and said they presumed I was a stranger, from my walk- 
ing unarmed so far from the city. They told me they were in pursuit of a pack 
of wolves that had attacked a gentleman on horseback, the day before, on the very 
place where we now stood; when nothing but the power and speed of his horse 
saved him. The horse was cut in several places, and the gentleman's boots nearly 
torn off his legs — you may think I was very thankful for the warning. My in- 
formants entered the wood on the opposite side of the road, and I did not pursue 
my walk any farther in that direction. I got acquainted with a Mr. Bedient of 
Boston, who was on his way to Montreal, as well as myself; we therefore hired 
a wagon between us, there being no other mode of conveyance. We traveled 
through a fine but only partially cultivated country, until we came to Saratoga, 
where the scenery was dark and gloomy, and the roads most intolerably bad, being 
made of round logs laid beside each other, forming causeways often for miles. 
These roads I was informed were made by General Burgoyne in his ill-conducted, 
and consequently ill-fated expedition. I saw the height on which the gallant 
Frazer fell, and went over part of the battleground with painful and humiliated 
feelings, which I was obliged to conceal, as no one would have sympathized with 
me. How different are my present ideas on the subject, when pride and prejudice 
no longer blind my eyes, and I can trace the hand of Omnipotence, baffling the 
efforts of tyrannic power to strangle the infant Hercules, who is destined to give 
law to the western world! I do not now recollect whether we slept more than one 
night on the road from Albany to Fort Edward, but we arrived late in the evening, 
and Mr. Bedient immediately hired a batteau to take us down Lake George early 
in the morning, which deprived me from visiting the ruins of the fort. The pas- 
sage down the lake was beautiful, and the scenery romantic in the highest degree. 
We stopped at the only house then on the border of the lake; I think the place 
was called Rattlesnake Point. There I saw a hunter for the first time. His 
costume was so different from anything I had hitherto seen, that I conceived him 
to be an Indian, but on accosting him found he spoke good English. He told me 
he had been in the woods three months, and had not been as successful as usual; 
he had two or three dogs with him, the merest skeletons I ever beheld. He told 
me that in a fortnight he would make them quite fat, by feeding them on rattle- 
snakes, for which purpose he had come to the lake, where they were abundant; 
as also to refresh himself. Cooper's description of Leather Stocking has repeatedly 
called this man to my mind. 

In the evening we passed the rock called Roger's Leap, which certainly was a 
feat of activity few men would be equal to, unless pursued as he was by an 
unrelenting foe, which reduced it to a mere matter of "neck or nothing," with him. 
We passed the ruins of Ticonderoga in the night, and slept at an inn, the lower 
story of which was literally washed by the waters of Lake Champlain; here we 
were obliged to spend a day before we could procure a boat to convey us down to 
St. Johns at its northern extremity. We passed the first night at a blacksmith 
and farmer's, where we had everything clean and comfortable, the contra<^t between 
their mode of living and the beings we call farmers in the north of Ireland was 
painfully striking. The second night we passed at a Judge McNeale's, who I 
found was a descendant of the McNeales of Clogher, near Bush Mills, and Giant's 



TflE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE '-SOO.'' 337 

Causeway; the estate when I left home, was possessed by Sir William Duncan, 
late of Calcutta in India. 

We arrived at St. Johns in the night, the commandant had gone to bed, and I 
was obliged to wait more than an hour in the guard house before I got liberty to 
seek an inn. In the morning I met Lieut. Boyd of Clare near Ballycastle, in the 
north of Ireland, an old acquaintance and neighbor with whom I spent the day. 

I took a calash from St. Johns to Laprairie, and then hired a canoe and man 
to take me over to Montreal. The fellow took me to a small island about a mile 
above the town, where he landed and went into the wood. 1 waited in the canoe 
for near an hour, and then went in search of him. I found him skulking in the 
wood. There was something so sinister in his looks, that I began to suspect him 
of a design to rob me. I made him come to the canoe and embark, swearing that 
if he did not take me to the mainland I would split him to the teeth with my 
paddle. When we got opposite the windmill above the town, I made him land 
and shoulder my portmanteau, and thus marched him before me into town. I 
was directed to O'SuUivan's coffee house, where I took up my abode, intending 
to rest a few days before I proceeded to Quebec; chiefly that I might get over the 
effect of the mosquito bites, by which I was absolutely deformed and feverish. 
1 had brought over with me a few guineas of the latest coinage, one of which I 
gave to Mr. O'Sullivan to get changed, and had a hearty laugth at his ignorance 
and impertinence, when he turned it in his fingers, and with a look half wise, 
half cunning said, "It is a very pretty counter." I told him to go and get it 
weighed, and on his return he was full as servile as before he had been insolent. 
The next evening I met in the coffee room my old acquaintance and friend, Mr. 
Andrew Tod. He was now a partner in the house of Tod, Magill & Co.; his 
uncle Isaac being one of the first merchants in Montreal since the conquest in 
1760. To him I imparted my object in going to Quebec; he with great candor 
and friendship pointed out the chances against my succeeding with Lord 
Dorchester, and advised me, if nothing satisfactory was done for me, to return 
to Montreal and pass the winter, and in the spring I should accompany him to 
Michilimackinac, where a fair field was open to adventures in the Indian trade, to 
which proposition I gave my assent. And now, my dear sir, having arrived at a 
new resting place, "shall I not take mine ease in mine inn," only promising to 
take up the thread of my narrative as soon as you express a desire to hear further 
from. 

Your ever affectionate, 

JOHN JOHNSTON. 

LETTER V. 

St. Mary's Falls, April 28, 1828. 

My Dear Sir: — Though it requires little, if any, mental effort to continue a 
story such as mine, yet I have found sickness an effectual preventive to the least 
exertion for more than six weeks past. But as I find myself relieved from intense 
pain, I once more take up my pen to mention, that after spending a week in 
Montreal, I took a place with the king's courier in a calash for Quebec. We 
traveled day and night, so that I never put off my clothes, nor got a moment's rest, 
except whilst changing our voiture, or when my companion delayed half an hour 
To lay in a stock of bacon and eggs, or some such delicate fare, sufficient one would 
have thought, to sustain a reasonable man for a week. But my friend Monsieur 
I.abadie weighed nearly 300 pounds and was determined that neither bad roads nor 
the most jolting vehicle in the world, should cause the least diminution of his 

43 



338 ANUAL MEETING, 1902. 

en bon point. I paid two guineas for my seat, and had the honor besides of treating 
Mr Labadie to all his slight repasts. We arrived the third day. and at Franks Hotel 
I soon got over my fatigue and privations. I was not sorry to find that Lord 
Dorchester was yet at his country house, as it enabled me to ramble over the town, 
the plains of Abraham, etc., etc. 1 had never before been in a fortified town, unless 
the old crumbling ramparts of Londonderry could entitle it to the name. I, there- 
fore took great pleasure in strolling on the walls and enjoying the variety of pros- 
pect presented from them; however, my entire ignorance of garrison duty led me 
into a scrape ludicrous enough, though it ended pleasantly. In pursuing my walk 
one day along the rampart. I met the first sentinel, who called out to me to stop 
and return if I had not a pass. Thinking the fellow only wanted to extract some 
money from me, I continued to approach, when he brought his musket to the 
charge and swore he must do his duty. Seeing the poor man was in earnest and 
apparently agitated, I returned, and as evening was near, I returned to my lodgings. 
The next morning, before my usual hour of rising, Mr. Franks came rather abruptly 
into my room to inform me that the town major was below inquiring for me, and 
to bring me with him to Col. England, the commandant. I bade Mr. Franks tell 
the major that if he would call in a couple of hours, when I should have dressed 
and breakfasted, I should, with pleasure, accompany him. Shortly after Mr. Franks 
entered again, and very seriously informed me, I was taken for a spy; but as he 
had formed a good opinion of me, if I wished to evade examination 
he would facilitate my escape. I told him I was much obliged to him for his 
proffered friendship, but could not think of stirring until I had got my breakfast 
and seen the town major. He stared at me, and said he believed I was something 
more than I appeared to be. I left him to enjoy his sage conjecture, and went 
down to breakfast. The major was punctual to his hour, and I went along with him 
to Col. England. My affair was soon cleared up, and the colonel asked me to break- 
fast the next morning, and presented me with a paper, allowing me to visit the 
works at the proper hours, and any company I chose to take with me; which arose 
from my having mentioned that some people from Montreal, with whom I had got 
acquainted at the hotel, wished to visit Cape Diamond. 

I had got acquainted with Mr. Motz, Lord D.'s private secretary, to whom I gave 
my letters In a few days after, his lordship came to town, when I had the honor 
of being introduced, and was received in a very kind and friendly manner; but, as 
Providence would have it, General Sir Alured Clark now arrived with the commis- 
sion of Governor General, and with letters of recall for his lordship; however, he 
decided not to risk Lady Dorchester and the family at so late a season, therefore 
continued in office during the winter. His lordship continued very kind and 
hospitable to me. and questioned me as to the fate of uncles who had been his 
schoolfellows. He introduced me to the chief merchants of the town, and wished 
me to write my ideas on the practicability of opening a direct trade with Ireland. 
In two or three days my memoir was finished, and he again invited me along with 
the gentlemen concerned, to dine at the castle, when the affair was fully discussed. 
They all acknowledged the justice and utility of the statement I had made, but 
candidly avowed that their connections in London, and the general nature of their 
imports, precluded their taking advantage of a direct trade; though it was very 
evident that the products of Ireland coming circuitously through their English 
correspondents, cost them much dearer than they otherwise would. Thus all pros- 
pect of entering into the mercantile line fell to the ground, and I announced to his 
lordship my determination to return to Montreal; he then told me, as he was 
determined not to take his family home at so late a season, he would introduce me 
to the bishop of Canada, where I would spend the winter agreeable, and learn to 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 339 

speak the French langiiage, and was so kind as to add that if in the interim any 
place worth my acceptance became vacant, I should be appointed to it. However^ 
I persisted in my resolution, not deeming it prudent to spend my time and money 
waiting for a contingency that might never occur. A few days after I took my 
leave, and was to set off the second day after, in company with a young ensign, 
who was going to join his regiment at St. Johns. But before 1 left town, Mr. Motz 
came to me with an offer from his lordship of a township on the Acadian line, but 
on enquiry I found it would require a considerable sum of money to make th6 
requisite locations to secure the title. I therefore begged leave to decline the offer, 
as neither suiting my means or inclination. In a short time after Mr. Motz again 
returned — and in the most delicate manner told me he was authorized to offer me 
any money I might stand in need of for the winter. But as my funds were still 
far from exhausted, and as my determination was never to lie under a pecuniary 
obligation, I might not easily be able to repay, I excused myself by assuring him 
I had a sufficient supply for the winter. But I requested that his lordship would 
favor me with a letter of introduction to Sir John Johnson, of whom, and of his 
father. Sir William, I had read and heard enough to inspire me with admiration, 
and a wish to have the honor of his acquaintance. I received the desired letter in' 
the evening, and the next morning left Quebec in a carriole, with my young Scots 
companion. Though early in November there was nearly a foot of snow upon the 
ground, and we continued the use of carrioles until we came to Three Rivers, from 
whence we took calashes into Montreal. 

My friend Mr. Tod received me with the utmost kindness and Introduced me to 
several oflBcers and gentlemen of the town. Sir John Johnson was absent on an 
excursion to the lake of Two Mountains, but his cousin, Capt. Dease, showed me 
the kindest attention and hospitality, and took me with him to his house in the 
country, where I remained until the arrival of Sir John, on whom we called the day 
after, and I presented my letter from Lord Dorchester. The reception I met with 
has left an impression that can never be effaced from my heart; and the unabated 
friendship and hospitality I have ever since been honored with by him. Lady 
Johnson and the ladies of the family, when several times passing a winter in Mon- 
treal, shall ever remain amongst my most grateful and pleasing recollections. 

As I could not think of being a tax on the hospitality of my Montreal friends all 
winter, though much pressed by Sir John to take up my abode with him, I took 
lodgings at the village of Varennes, about fifteen miles from town, on the opposite 
side of the St. Lawrence, at a Mr. Vienne's, where I continued my study of the 
French language, which I had commenced before I left Ireland, and began to speak 
it pretty much as a child begins to walk, stumbling at every step; but to the honor 
of French urbanity and politeness, my greatest blunders were corrected without 
subjecting me to the pain of seeing my awkwardness and ignorance the subject of 
mirth or ridicule. 

I visited Montreal several times during the winter, and attended the assemblies, 
which were conducted with great decorum, and where Lady Johnson and her daugh- 
ter, just then brought out, were received with every degree of deference and 
respect. The winter passed off very agreeably, and in the beginning of May, 1791, 
I returned to Montreal, to take my passage with my friend, Andrew Tod. for Mich- 
ilimackinac, by the North or Otawis river. The mode of traveling in a birch canoe. 
the wild and romantic scenery on each side of the river, all was new and charming 
to me, except the last five or six days of our voyage, when the mosquitoes annoyed 
us beyond all endurance. I, who had nothing else to do but defend myself from 
them the best way I could, was left a perfect spectacle of deformity, my eyes near 
closed up, and my mouth distorted in a most frightful manner; judge then the 



340 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

condition of the poor men, engaged in carrying the baggage over the portages with 
their faces, necks and breasts exposed, and the blood and sweat in comingled 
streams running from them. But they seemed to mind it very little, making game 
of some young men whose first trip it was, whom they called mangers de lard, or pork 
eaters, and treated with great contempt if they expressed pain or fatigue. We 
arrived the 16th at Mackinac, and were received with great politeness and hos- 
pitality by Capt. Charleton of the 5th foot, then commanding. I had been acquainted 
with him in the north of Ireland, when in command in the town of Coleraine. Our 
meeting so unexpectedly at a distance of more than four thousand miles from home, 
was very pleasing to both, and called up a variety of mixed ideas, some of which 
to me were rather painful, as they contrasted my present situation with the time 
I had received him hospitably at my mother's house, when placing a detachment to 
guard the wreck of a ship cast away within less than half a mile of Craige. As 
the traders, neither from the Mississippi or the Lake Superior, had yet arrived, 
I had some weeks leisure, which I employed in exploring the island and in read- 
ing. I shall, therefore here conclude this tedious epistle with a promise that my 
next shall have at least the merit of novelty to recommend it. 

Ever truly yours, 

JOHN JOHNSTON. 

LETTER VI. 

St. Mary's Falls, June 10, 1828. 

My Dear Sir: — 111 health and often depression of spirits, owing to the iniquitous 
manner in which the Indian trade is, and has been always carried on here, and in 
fact all over the continent, with the addition of painful reflections, on my own 
imprudence and unability to compete with opponents equally active as unprincipled, 
have been the cause of my letting so long an interval lapse since the date of my 
last. But I now resume my pen in hopes of presenting you with a sketch of the 
arrival of the traders, and the shifting of the scene from streets unoccupied, where 
dullness and silence reigned unmolested, to houses crowded to overflowing, where 
riot and revelry, festivity and song, swept all descriptions down its heady current 
with scarcely a single exception. The excuse pleaded by the traders is their 
many fatigues, risks and privations during the winter, and often an entire seclusion 
from all society, so that when they again meet at Mackinac, where they are sure 
to see their Montreal friends, and an ample supply of wines, spirits, etc., etc., 
they think themselves entitled to make up for what they call lost time, by making 
the most of the short interval that elapses between the sale of their furs, and their 
repurchase of goods for a new adventure. The chief traders and Montreal mer- 
chants keep open table for their friends and dependants, and vie with each other 
in hospitality to strangers. But the excess to which their indulgence is carried, 
seldom ends without a quarrel, when old grudges are opened up, and language 
made use of that would disgrace a Wapping tavern, and the flnale a boxing match, 
as brutal and ferocious as any exhibited in ancient times by the Centaurs and 
Lapythe. 

But were I to relate all I have heard and been an unwilling witness of, this would 
become a chronicle of scandal instead of a letter, I shall therefore let the curtain 
drop for the present, only retaining the liberty of taking it up occasionally, as new 
acts of this far from delightful drama, may present themselves to my recollection. 
The Montreal canoes began to move off with their cargoes of furs and peltries, 
during the month of July, and the traders whose posts were the most distant, were 
chiefly all off by the beginning of August, so that tranquility and rationality began 
to reassume their long forgotten sway. 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO."" 341 

About the middle of August my friend Mr. Tod, fitted me out with a canoe 
of the largest size with five Canadian boatmen or voyagers, to winter at La Pointe, 
in Lake Superior, which station I preferred to one more to the south. 

Owing to constant high winds, it was late in September before I arrived at my 
destined winter ground, where I met with Count Andriani, an Italian nobleman 
and philosopher, who was taking observations to ascertain whether the earth was 
more elevated or depressed towards the poles. The conclusion he had come to was, 
that at the poles the earth must be flatter than at the equator, for we were then at 
La Pointe, a distance of two thousand miles from the ocean, not more than 690 feet 
above its level. The subject was then much discussed amongst naturalists, but 
is now set at rest forever, for were the high aspiring parties to move towards 
each other in hostile array, the consequences would be rather disagreeable to us 
emmets occupying the intermediate mole hills. As soon as the count left me 
to continue his tour of the lake, I sent off two of my men with a small equipment, 
to winter in the Mauvaise or Bad river. The others I set to fishing, that we 
might lay in a stock for winter store, the cold weather having commenced early 
in October. I now got a house of ro^ind logs finished for myself, the interstices 
plastered with clay, and a chimney of the same material; my men had also a 
similar house for themselves, and I began to get fire wood cut and brought home, 
while the weather was yet favorable. But on the 17th of November my faithless 
Canadians deserted, taking with them my fishing canoe, an oil cloth, nets, axes, etc., 
and nearly all my fish, leaving me only a lad of 17 or 18, who slept in my little 
kitchen, and who luckily could speak a little Ottawa, by which he would make 
the Chippeways understand him. I had as neighbors two Canadians, who from 
having acquired a knowledge of the language, had become traders; they, as well 
as their men. knew of the desertion of my people, and had connived at, if not 
encouraged them in it. I was thus left in the midst of savages and Canadians, 
much baser and more treacherous than they, to encounter a winter on the shore of 
Lake Superior, with only one attendant, a very short allowance of provisions, and 
deprived of the means of fishing, which I had flattered myself would have been a 
sure resource, at least against actual want. I sat down rather in bad spirits to 
ruminate on my situation, and at length it struck me that my case, in many par- 
ticulars, had a resemblance to that of Robinson Crusoe, and I got up determined to 
follow his example by making every exertion in my power to ameliorate it. 

I began immediately to prepare axes, and set to chopping fire wood, which I aUd 
my man carried home on our shoulders. The distance luckily was not great, for I 
was unwilling to touch about five cords left by my men, which I considered a der- 
nier resort, in cases of bad weather or any accident. We got on very well the first 
day, but the second my hands became blistered, and I persisted till my axe handle 
was stained with my blo"od. I then proposed to my man that he should continue to 
chop and I would be carrier; this induced emulation, for I proposed to carry as 
fast as he could chop, and in less than a fortnight we had six cords more at- our 
door, beside a good many large logs that we were obliged to roll. Constant exercise 
gave appetite for our humble fare, and fatigue induced sound sleep that left little 
time for painful reflection. 

The Indians had left us for some time, and had gone to a considerable distance 
on their hunting excursions, all except the old father of the chief, who only went 
to a small river in the bay of St. Charles, from whence, however, he returned just 
as the ice in our bay was closing. My good neighbors rushed into the water 
and hauled the canoe to shore, and without ceremony possessed themselves of 
eight or ten beavers the old man had killed. They kept him. his two wives and a 
Mrs. .layer, one of his daughters, who wintered with him. in a constant state of 



342 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

intoxication for some days, at the end of which they fairly turned them out of 
doors, telling them they must provide for themselves, as they would feed them no 
longer. Some time after the old man came to me and complained of hunger, as 
his wives could not go to a deposit of wild rice they had concealed at a consider- 
able distance, the weather having become very bad, and the snow too deep to walk 
without snow shoes. I told him I would not see him or his family starve, though I 
much feared I should want food long before spring, and that he ought to recollect 
he had not paid me a small credit I had made him before he went to hunt. He 
acknowledged the fact, but said, those who had taken him to shore made him 
drunk, and kept him so, until his little stock of furs was exhausted, though he 
knew not what he had received in return, except his meat and drink for a few 
days. I accepted his excuse, and continued to treat him all winter with great 
respect, as he showed me a large bugle belt, with which, and a silver gorget, 
he had been presented by Sir William Johnson after the fall of Fort Niagara to 
the British forces. He said he had kept his belt free from stain until now, and 
hoped his son Wabojeeg would continue to do so after he should be gone to the 
land of spirits. 



Mr. Johnston laid down his pen at the threshold of his entrance upon a new 
theatre of life, presenting to him objects and means so different from all he had 
left behind that the experience of the past afforded but little to guide him in the 
conduct of the future. The disappointments he had met with had not, however, 
soured his temper, or dampened his spirits. He was ardent, young, active, pos- 
sessed a constitution naturally vigorous, with a disposition social, frank and open, 
a high sense of probity, a firm dependence upon Providence, and a heart glowing 
with ardent aspirations after truth, and governed by the broadest principles of 
active benevolence. He was now about to commence the most important period of 
his life, embracing a residence of the better part of half a century in the remote 
solitudes of the American forest, separated from the society in which he has derived 
so much of his former enjoyments, and thrown wholly upon his own resources. He 
was brought to endure privations and to encounter perils, of which he had heard 
before only in the history of suffering humanity. The incidents of his new situation 
also brought him into contact and acquaintance with some of the most noted indi- 
viduals who have figured in the commerce and politics of the Canadas during the 
last 40 years. And had he been spared to complete his autobiography, it would 
have led him to mention the names and characters of many of his cotemporaries, 
and to advance a fund of anecdote, and historical and other data, exhibiting a lively 
picture of his times. Several of the occurrences of this era, relative to the north- 
west fur trade, are of dramatic interest; but the veil which covers perfidy and 
crime would have been raised by him with extreme reluctance. He evidently con- 
templated with pain the approach of his narrative to the period when it would 
become necessary to allude to the fierce strifes carried on between rival monopolists 
in this trade, and as imposing a task which seemed like "walking upon the ashes 
under which the fire is not yet extinguished." 

What he has not furnished however, it would be difficult to supply, few materials 
for the purpose being known to exist. He very rarely kept copies of his letters, 
none of his private letters, and never preserved the letters sent to him by others. 
The scanty materials I have been able to collect were preserved entirely by other 
hands. He had an aversion in his latter years to writing at all, or rather the 
irksomeness of the task was owing to ill health, which left him but a small portion 
of his time without the sense of acute pain. And he destroyed many letters and 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 343 

communications which a person of greater business habits, or more distrust of the 
world's sincerity, would have induced him to preserve. Facts, dates, and occur- 
rences have thus, in a measure, become blended in vague recollections on the part 
of his friends and family. A continuation of his life, on anything like the plan 
commenced by himself, is therefore impossible, and will not be attempted. Even 
the brief notices which follow would hardly be undertaken, were it not for the 
abruptness with which his manuscript terminates, and for a desire to aid m hold- 
ln<^ from oblivion the name of a man, who, gifted with powers to shine in polished 
cirdes gave up the world for the sake of raising up to virtue and piety a numerous 
family under peculiar circumstances. For it was in this region, to which he has 
conducted the reader in his letters, that he connected himself.- by intermarriage, 
with one of the leading families of the native race. 

Mr Johnston's earliest efforts in the fur trade were successful, notwithstanding 
the perfidy of his men. who deserted him during his first season. And he continued 
his efforts with prospects more flattering, as experience made him acquainted with 
the difficulties to be encountered, and the precautions necessary to ensure success. 
This traffic has always been pursued at great personal, as well as pecuniary risk; 
but he soon found himself placed in a situation, in which it became the duty of 
subordinates to make those exchanges with the natives, which frequently require a 
patient submission to caprices and superstitions repugnant to a sensitive mind. 
And while every season was supposed to abridge the period of his stay in the 
country, he indulged in those reflections and anticipations arising from a temporary 

^ M? Tod under whose auspices he had entered the Indian country, invited him to 
settle at New Orleans, where this enterprising merchant had obtained f ™ni the 
Spanish governor general of Louisiana the monopoly of the fur trade of that prov- 
Tnce But the invitation was declined from a dread of the climate, to which Mr 
Tod 'himself soon fell a victim. About the same time an opening presented itself 
to Mr. Johnston for his settlement at Green Bay; but his predilections m favor o 
a more northern position predominated, and he fixed his residence at the Falls o 
St Mary in 1793. He had the year previous married the youngest daughter of 
Wabojeeg. the hereditary and war chief of La Pointe, in Lake Superior, and now 
came to establish himself in permanent buildings at a spot commanding the grea 
thoroughfare into the northwest. By this term we include an immense tract of 
wilderness, intersected with lakes, rivers, and mountains, which has been distin- 
guished from the -earliest times as the seat of that great and hazardous branch 
of internal commerce, known under the name of the fur trade. 

A high, and it may be thought a proud, spirit of personal independence, which 
had been one of the original causes of his coming to America, and which disdained 
all secondary modes of action, kept him aloof from the great rival companies, who 
have at varLs times, borne sway over the northern regions. He either declined 
the offers of participation in these somewhat two celebrated fraternities, or neglected 
the meTns necessary to a copartnership. While he thus kept free from entangle- 
ments in a system which he could not always approve, he. however ^^n ri^^^^ ^^ 
another kind, and stood somewhat in the position of a man be ween two A es. ho 
can neither flee to the right nor to the left. Luckily his course lay straight for. ard 
but it is scarcely possible that a man of less intrepidity of character in the hour 
oTneea, or urbanity of manners in the social circle, could have sustained himself. 

Just and honorable in all his intentions, though they were sometimes grossly 
misinterpreted, he expected equal Justice and fair dealing from ^^^-^^ J^^^^;;^^\" 
not thus openly met, he did not hesitate to give vent to a '''^''\^;^ ^^^"^^J;^'^^, 
sion of his feelings, regardless of consequences. This was sometimes the cause of 



344 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

future bitterness and petty resentments. He escaped once the blow of a secret 
assassin; once the risk of a combat with pistols, with the slight loss of a lock from 
his temples; and twice, so far as I recollect his own relation, the brutal fury of the 
Indian knife. His own resentments were momentary, and he took a delight, when 
circumstances had placed an antagonist in his power, in forgiving injuries and 
relinquishing advantages, and in throwing the shade of oblivion over all the errors 
and frailties of the past. His reliance upon the overruling hand of Providence, 
wherever placed, was unbounded; and I know not that it has ever fallen to my lot 
to become intimately acquainted with any person who could, at the seasons of his 
greatest affliction, exclaim with such trusting confidence, "Thy will be done." 

It may be inferred from these passages that the business in which Mr. Johnston 
was engaged was one for which his disposition and mental habits did not particu- 
larly qualify him, and which he would not himself have chosen, could it have been 
presented to him with all its repulsive, as well as attractive features, on his first 
coming to the country. Nothing, in fact, could be less congenial to his taste. Once, 
however, engaged in it, and he appeared, as he himself observed, to be hurried on by 
a fatality which seemed to forbid a return to his native land. And the prospect of 
getting on in the world, without imposing any pecuniary burdens upon his relatives 
a point on which he was peculiarly sensitive — determined him to continue, as a 
fixed employment what he can hardly be said to have selected of his own free will. 

In the ordinary intercourse of the Indians with Mr. Johnston, at his residence at 
St. Mary's, he was their adviser, physician, and friend. And his disinterested con- 
duct on many occasions led them to perceive that he had placed his claims to their 
friendship on higher grounds than the mere prospect of gain. His house was the 
resort of the needy Indian and Canadian. 

"And every stranger found a i-eady chair." 

He possessed an active coadjutor, in acts of charity, in Mrs. Jdnnston, the daugh- 
ter of Wabojeeg whose kindness and practical benevolence were in full unison with 
his own. He always kept in his dwelling a full supply of medicines, which he 
administered gratis to all who applied. He used the lancet freely in cases of 
pleurisy, which is a common complaint among the natives. Although he had made 
no professed study of medicine, his practical knowledge, aided by books of refer- 
ence, was respectable; and when the surgeons of the United States army afterwards 
came to be placed in his vicinity, they deemed several of his modes of practice 
judicious. He was often the means of granting relief, where relief depended upon 
the ordinary remedies of common complaints, and he seldom ventured upon other 
prescriptions. But his tact and decision in this depai'tment proved that, had he 
given early and proper attention to it, he was capacitated to have excelled in it. 

The readiness with which he could be approached by complaints of poverty and 
bad luck, and the little effort it required to enkindle his charitable feelings, some- 
times led him to be imposed upon by the inland clerks and servants in his employ. 
A tale of suffering -seldom failed to reconcile him to loss or disappointment, which, 
there is good reason to believe, was frequently attributable to a want of proper 
diligence and economy, or still more inexcusable faults on their part. 

With dispositions thus liberal, and surrounded by opponents whose vigilance was 
constantly on the watch, and who, in some instances, were relieved from those 
scruples of conscience which kept him ever above a mean act, and led him to despise 
trick and finesse, it may be anticipated that his march in the road to wealth was 
not so rapid as those who could reconcile themselves to life in the Indian country 
without ordinary comforts, and who looked upon every dollar spent to purchase a 
book, or a vase, as so much money thrown away. If Mr. Johnston had any fault 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 



345 



in this respect, it certainly bordered on the opposite extreme; and in ordering his 
Lous ho d exp nses, he might sometimes incur the imputation of bemg profuse 
Ye he succeeded from the outset, often meeting with successes which he had not 
anticipated and added steadily to that income, on the yearly re-investmen and 
fnc ease of which he depended. Twenty years devoted to this pursuit placed him 
nTstate of comparative independence, and gave him the chief control ot the trade 
o" me southern shores of Lake Superior, and some of the adjacent regions. He 
Contemplated his declining years, and the provision he would be able to make for 
his children with satisfaction. 

WABOJEEG, OR THE WHITE FISHER. 

This individual has indelibly interwoven his name with the history of the Chip- 
pela n:^ion. during the latter half of the eighteenth c.ntury. His ances ors h^ 
from the earliest times, held the principal chieftainship m Lake Supenoi. His 
Xr Ma^ongazida, was the ruling chief during the war of the conquest o the 
Canalas tr the Bri ish crc^wn. In common with his tribe and the northern 
nations generally, he was the fast friend of the French government^ ,^,^9 " He oa '- 
ent with his warriors, under Gen. Montcalm, at the loss of Quebec n 1759 He oar 
r'ed a short speech from that celebrated officer to his people m the north^ which 
said to have been verbally delivered a short time before he went to he field^ 
The period of the fall of the French power in the Canadas is one of the most 
Jrked vents in Indian reminiscence throughout all northwest America. They 
Tefer to tie days of French supremacy as a kind of golden era, when all things 
n the r aSairs were better than they now are; and I have heard them lament over 
he change Is one which was in every respect detrimental to their power and 
happiness No other European nation, it is evident from these allusions, ever 
nleased them as well. The French character and manners adapted themselves ad- 
mrablytoThe existing customs of forest life. The common people who went up 
ZoZ interior to trade, fell in with their customs with a ^eg- of plasticity and 
an air of gayety and full assent, which no other foreigners have at east to the 
same ex eS shown. These Couriers du Bois had not much to boast of on he 
score of rSd morals themselves. They had nearly as much ^^P-^^^^-.^^^^ ^^^^ 
wHdest Indians They were in fact, at least nine-tenths of them, quite as illiterate^ 
V ry many "rthem were far inferior in their mental structure and capacity to the 
Toll Toquent and well-formed and athletic northern chiefs and hunters. They 

re Lted theh- religious and festive ceremonies. They never, as a chief once told 
respected meirieg ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^.^ ^^^^^^, ^^^^^^^ from 

rare<? which remains unbroken to this day. „,„of«.,.n 

Thist the .,„e secret ot the strenuous eftorts made hy the northern an weste n 

Indians to s.,sta>n *« --f/^n^' T^e'vTaU^rE ^ It rrt'N:a:'ar:;:ion': 
TJZ. Z::rZ Lv hll t;r,h .nLiate., ,,ea, aroun., the outsorts ot the 
northern and western setllements dtlring the many and sanguinary wars earned 

44 



346 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

Saxon race into the sea, who beseiged twelve and took nine of the western stockaded 
forts, and who for four years and upwards maintained the war, after the French 
had struck their colors and ceded the country. We refer to the great Algic leader, 
Pontiac. 

At present our attention is called to a contemporary chief, of equal personal 
hravery and conduct, certainly, but who lived and exercised his authority at a more 
remote point, and had not the same masses and means at his command. This 
point, so long hid in the great forests of the north, and which, indeed, has been 
but lately revealed in our positive geography, is the area of Lake Superior. It is 
here that we find the Indian tradition to be rife with the name of Wabojeeg and 
his wars, and his contemporaries. It was one of the direct consequences of so 
remote a position, that it withdrew his attention more from the actual conflicts 
between the French and Englisn, and fixed them upon his western and southern 
frontiers, which were menaced and invaded by the numerous bands of the Dacotahs, 
and by the perfidious kinsmen of his nation, the Outagamies and Saucs. He came 
into active life, too, as a prominent war leader, at the precise era when the Can- 
adas had fallen into the British power, and by engaging zealously in the defense 
of the borders of his nation west, he allowed time to mitigate and adjust those 
feelings and attachments which, so far as public policy was concerned, must be 
considered to have moulded the Indian mind to a compliance with, and a submis- 
sion to, the British authority. Wabojeeg was, emphatically, the defender of the 
Chippewa domain against the efforts of other branches of the red race. He did 
not, therefore, lead his people to fight, as his father, Ma-mongazida, and nearly all 
the great Indian war captains had, to enable one type of the foreign race to triumph 
over another, but raised his parties and led them forth to maintain his tribal su- 
premacy. He may be contemplated, therefore, as having had a more patriotic object 
for his achievement. 

Lake Superior, at the time of our earliest acquaintance with the region, was 
occupied, as it is at this day, by the Chippewa race. The chief seat of their power 
appeared to be near the southwestern extremity of the lake, at Chagoimegon, where 
fathers Marquette and Allouez found their way, and established a mission, so 
early as 1668. Another of their principal, and probably more ancient seats, was at 
the great rapids on the outlet of that lake, which they named the Sault de Ste. 
Marie. It was in allusion to their residence here that they called this tribe Sault- 
eur, that is to say, people of the leap or rapid. 

Indian tradition makes the Chippewas one of the chief, certainly by far the most 
numerous and widely-spread of the Algonquin stock proper. It represents them to 
have migrated from the east to the west. On reaching the vicinity of Michilimacki- 
nac, they separated at a comparatively moderate era into three tribes, calling them- 
selves respectively, Odjibwas, Odawas, and Podawadumees. What their name was 
before this era, is not known. It is manifest that the term Odjibwa is not a very 
ancient one, for it does not occur in the earliest authors. They were probably of 
the Nipercinean or true Algonquin stock, and had taken the route of the Utawas 
river, from the St. Lawrence valley, into Lake Huron. The term itself is clearly 
from Bwa, a voice; and its prefix in Odji, was probably designed to mark a peculiar 
Intonation which the muscles are, as it were, gathered up, to denote. 

Whatever be the facts of their origin, they had taken the route up the straits 
of St. Mary into Lake Superior, both sides of which, and far beyond, they occupied 
at the era of the French discovery. It is evident that their course in this direction 
must have been aggressive. They were advancing towards the west and northwest. 
The tribe known as Kenistenos had passed through the Lake of the Woods, through 
the great lake Nipesing, and as far as the heads of the Saskatchewine and the por- 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 347 

„• • ■ • .f Mnrl^on's bav The warlike band of Leech lake, called 
tage of the Missinipi of Hudson s bay. ^^« ^ ^^ Mississippi and 

Mukundwas. had spread themselves ^f^*^^ ,^^^ ^^/X't^iev came into contact 
extended their hunting ---^uT T^^ nt 1 P-^^^^^^^^ thi's era. still remained 
with the Assinaboines or Stone Sioux. The centra p . tradition asserts. 

at Chagoimegon. on S^P«"°^' ^'^^'"V"?!;! orboth cTvil and ecclesiastical 
there was maintained something like a frame of botQ civu 

polity and government. , , ^ , ^ ,,,, tu„ rhinnewas that the Outagamies, 

It is said m the traditions -f f^'° "r^^^.^^''^^';^ f^^^^^^ .hlch extends 

or Fo.es. had P--^«* '^^ '^ad o Fox e, „, Green bay, towards the Falls 
in a general course from the head « '<"' • borders of Lake Superior. 

ot St. Anthony, reaching in some ^''''^'^■''^^^'l^^XT^,,. which lie at the 
They are remembered to have occipied ''^^"f ™[ ^^ and the St. Croix rivers, 
sources of the ^''-°-'^; '^'^^ "/^^cs who haTa rend:d the Mississippi some 
They were -/-f;^ J'*g',''\X„;. where they lived on friendly terms with 
distance above he Falls °' f ' ;^"' f ' ^^j^„,,, ^„„ to the Outagamies. and .t 

rsrme:uTorpr^ese:;'lnga"good understanding between the Dacotabs and 

Thfrx tribe IS ciosely a«ilated with the Chlppew^^ -/ sa^e" grnfralTn": 
brothers. They are of the same S«eral or.gm and speaK he ^am g^^ ^ ^^^^^ 

guage, the chlc-f ^f^-V" ^^^^.^^l.^ of their disagreement Is not 
the Odjlbwas employ an n. The particujai „n,aithful and treacherous, 

known. They are said by the Chippewas to «^'^^f ° "''^l'^ ,^j j„ „„,jors, and 
Individual quarrels and trespasses on their hunting 8'0"mls led to 

in the end to a war. In which the ^^-"'^l^'^^^l^ ^'ZlT^i ."pVer Wisconsin. 

TmS^iirt^^lrTirnreyrmrd^ar:?; the Sioux, and fought by 

Twasln this contest that Wahoieeg ^'^''If^'^f^^'^^f^^^^Z 
his bravery and address the former "1""'";°" °'„'';^ '7^,'^;,3"°1 ^ade to this 
foundations of his northern chlettaindom. Having hea.d allusion^ m 

person on my ^-^^l^ ^Z:^^^^^^::::: :^^:^^ '- and 
enquiries, and '""'^'^ '"'^^^j,''; f J;" r,„„ these sources I gleaned the follow- 
t\"faSr h:" o^ as^nlSy - . conld compute the «-• about H«^ By 
n.u ulr and romantic incident his father, "--".a-da was a half brother o 

,„rt;r ::: arLrrd=-.rthrh„rg'}^^^^^^^ 

a Sioux chief, of distinction, admired and "^^^^^^^ ^J;^;^;^^^^ ;^' Z.e persons 

rth=: trirwrhrd-m=r:r ^^^^^ 

tilities commenced, but finding his position ^'^^^''^'^'''J;^,^ '^J'f^. l^aVe ac- 
great reluctance, to leave his wife behind, as she coiUd ^^^^^^in the 
companied him into the Sioux territories^ f^/lVo leave them among the Chip- 
veins of her two sons, neither was it safe for her to l^^ve them ^ 
pewas. They were, however, by mutual -^7^™^"^ .^"^^^hl 
father The eldest of these sons became the father of Wabasha. 



^'*^ ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

The mother, thus divorced by the mutual consent of all parties, remained incon- 
solable for some time. She was still young and handsome, and after a few years 
became the wife of a young Chippewa chief of Chagoimegon, of the honored totem 
of the Addick or reindeer. Her first child by this second marriage was Ma-mong- 
azida, the father of Wabojeeg. In this manner, a connection existed between two 
families, of separate hostile nations, each of which distinguished itself for bravery 
and skill in war and council. It has already been stated that Ma-mongazida was 
present, on the side of the French, in the great action in which both Montcalm and 
Wolf fell, and he continued to exercise the chieftainship till his death, when his 
second son succeeded him. 

It was one of the consequences of the hostility of the Indians to the English 
rule, that many of the remote tribes were left, for a time, without traders to 
supply their wants. This was the case, tradition asserts, with Chagoimegon 
which, for two years after the taking of old Mackinac, was left without a trader' 
To remonstrate against this, Ma-mongazida visited Sir William Johnson, the super- 
intendent general of Indian affairs, by whom he was well received, and presented 
with a broad wampum belt and gorget. This act laid the foundation of a lasting 
peace between the Chippewas and the English. The belt, it is added, was of blue 
wampum, with figures of white. And when Wabojeeg came to the chieftainship 
he took from it the wampum employed by him to muster his war parties. 

In making traditionary enquiries I have found that the Indian narrators were 
careful to preserve and note any fact in the early lives of their distinguished 
men, which appeared to prefigure their future eminence, or had anvthing of the 
wonderful or premonitory in its character. The following incident of'this sort was 
noticed respecting this chief: Ma-mongazida generally went to make his fall 
hunts on the middle grounds towards the Sioux territory, taking with him all his 
near relatives, amounting usually to 20 persons, exclusive of children. Early one 
morning while the young men were preparing for the chase, they were startled by 
the report of several shots, directed towards the lodge. As they had thought them- 
selves in security, the first emotion was surprise, and they had scarcely time to fly 
to their arms when another volley was fired, which wounded one man in the 
thigh and killed a dog. Ma-mongazida immediately sallied out with his young 
men, and pronouncing his name aloud in the Sioux language, demanded if 
Wabasha or his brother were among the assailants. The firing instantly ceased— 
a pause ensued, when a tall figure in a war dress with a profusion of feathers upon 
his head stepped forward and presented his hand. It was the elder Wabasha, his 
half brother. The Sioux peaceably followed their leader into the lodge, upon 
which they had, the moment before, directed their shots. At the instant the 
Sioux chief entered, it was necessary to stoop a little, in passing the door. In the 
act of stooping, he received a blow from a warclub weilded by a small boj% who 
had posted himself there for the purpose. It took the young Wabojeeg. Wabasha, 
pleased with this early indication of courage, took the little lad in his arms,' 
caressed him, and pronounced that he would become a brave man, and prove an 
inveterate enemy of the Sioux. 

The border warfare in which the father of the infant warrior was constantly 
engaged, early initiated him in the arts and ceremonies pertaining to war. With 
the eager interest and love of novelty of the young, he listened to their war songs 
and war stories, and longed for the time when he would be old enough to join 
these parties, and also make himself a name among warriors. While quite a youth 
he volunteered to go out with a party and soon gave convincing proofs of his 
courage. He also early learned the arts of hunting the deer, the bear, the moose, 
and all the smaller animals common to the country; and in these pursuits he took 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 349 

the ordinary lessons of Indian young men, in abstinence, suffering, danger and en- 
durance of fatigue. In this manner his nerves were knit and formed for activity, 
and his mind stored with those lessons of caution which are the result of local 
experience in the forest. He possessed a tall and commanding person, with a full, 
:black, piercing eye, and the usual features of his countrymen. He had a clear and 
full-toned voice, and spoke his native language with grace and fluency. To these 
attractions he united an early reputation for bravery and skill in the chase, and 
at the age of 22 he was already a war leader. 

Expeditions of one Indian tribe against another require the utmost caution, skill, 
and secrecy. There are a hundred things to give information to such a party, or 
influence its action, which are unknown to civilized nations. The breaking of a 
twig, the slightest impression of a foot print, and other like circumstances, deter- 
mine a halt, a retreat, or an advance. The most scrupulous attention is also paid 
to the signs of the heavens, the flight of birds, and above all, to the dreams and 
predictions of the jossakeed, priest, or prophet, who accompanies them, and who 
is entrusted with the sacred sack. The theory upon which all these parties are 
conducted is secrecy and stratagem; to steal upon the enemy unawares; to lay in 
ambush, or decoy; to kill and to avoid as much as possible the hazard of being 
killed. An intimate geographical knowledge of the country is also required by a 
successful war leader, and such a man piques himself, not only on knowing every 
prominent stream, hill, valley, wood, or rock, but the particular productions, ani- 
mal and vegetable, of the scene of operations. When it is considered that this 
species of knowledge, shrewdness, and sagacity is possessed on both sides, and 
that the nations at war watch each other, as a lynx for its prey, it may be con- 
ceived that many of these border war parties are either light skirmishes, sudden 
on-rushes, or utter failures. It is seldom that a close, well-contested, long-continu- 
ed hard battle is fought. To kill a few men, tear off their scalps in haste, and 
retreat with these trophies, is a brave and honorable trait with them, and may be 
boasted of in their triumphal dances and warlike festivities. 

To glean the details of these movements, would be to acquire the modern history 
of the tribe, which induced me to direct my enquiries to the subject; but the 
lapse of even 40 or 50 years had shorn tradition of most of these details, and often 
left the memory of results only. The Chippewas told me that this chief had led them 
seven times to successful battle against the Sioux and the Outagamies, and that he 
had been wounded thrice — once in the thigh, once in the right shoulder, and a 
third in the side and breast, being a glancing shot. His war parties consisted 
either of volunteers who had joined his standard at the war dance, or of auxil- 
iaries who had accepted his messages of wampum and tobacco and come forward 
in a body to the appointed place of rendezvous. These parties varied greatly in 
number; his flrst party consisted of but 40 men, his greatest and most renowned, of 
300 who were mustered from the villages on the shores of the lake, as far east as 
St. Mary's falls. 

It is to the incidents of this last expedition, which had an important influence 
on the progress of the war, that we may devote a few moments. The place of 
rendezvous was Ta Pointe, Chagomiegon, or as it is called in modern days. T.a 
Pointe of Lake Superior. The scene of the conflict, which was a long and bloody 
one, was the falls of the St. Croix. The two places are distant about 2^^0 miles, 
by the most direct route. This area embraces the summit land between Lake Supe- 
rior and the upper Mississippi. The streams flowing each way interlock, which 
enables the natives to ascend them in their light canoes, and after carrying the 
latter over the portages, to descend on the opposite side. On this occasion Wabojeeg 
and his partisan army ascended the Muskigo or Mauvais river to its connecting 



350 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

portage with the Namakagon branch of the St. Croix. On crossing the summit 
they embarlied in their small and light war canoes on their descent westward. 
This portion of the route was passed with the utmost caution. They were now rap- 
idly approaching the enemy's borders, and every sign was regarded with deep 
attention. They were seven days from the time they first reached the waters of 
the St. Croix until they found the enemy. They went but a short distance each 
day, and encamped. On the evening of the seventh day the scouts discovered a 
large body of Sioux and Outagamies encamped on the lower side of the portage of 
the great falls of the St. Croix. The discovery was a surprise on both sides. The 
advance of the Chippewas had landed at the upper end of the portage, intending to 
encamp there. The Sioux and their allies had just preceded them, from the lower 
part of the stream, with the same object. The Foxes or Outagamies immediately 
fired, and a battle ensued. It is a spot, indeed, from which a retreat either way 
is impracticable, in the face of an enemy. It is a mere neck of rugged rock. The 
river forces a passage through this dark and solid barrier. It is equally rapid and 
dangerous for canoes above and below. It cannot be crossed direct. After the fir- 
ing began Wabojeeg landed and brought up his men. He directed a part of them 
to extend themselves in the wood around the small neck, or peninsula, of the por- 
tage, whence alone escape was possible. Both parties fought with bravery; the 
Foxes with desperation. But they were outnumbered, overpowered, and defeated. 
Some attempted to descend the rapids, and were lost. A few only escaped. But 
the Chippewas paid dearly for their victory. Wabojeeg was slightly wounded 
In the breast; his brother was killed. Many brave warriors fell. It was a most 
sanguinary scene. The tradition of this battle is one of the most prominent and 
wide-spread of the events of their modern history. I have conversed with more 
than one chief, who dated his first military honors in youth, to this scene. It put 
an end to their feud with the Foxes, who retired from the intermediate rice lakes, 
and fled down the Wisconsin. It raised the name of the Chippewa leader to the 
acme of his renown among his people; but Wabojeeg, as humane as he was brave, 
grieved over the loss of his people who had fallen in the action. This feeling was 
expressed touchingly and characteristically, in a war song, which he uttered after 
this victory, which has t»een preserved by the late Mr. Johnston, of St. Mary's, in 
the following stanzas: 

On that day when our heroes lay low— lay low, 

On that day when our heroes lay low, 
I fought by their side, and thought ere I died. 

Just vengeance to take on the foe, 

Just vengeance to take on the foe. 

On that day when our chieftains lay dead— lay dead. 
On that day when our chieftains lay dead, 
■ I fought hand to hand, at the head of my band. 
And here, on my breast, have I bled. 
And here, on my breast, have I bled. 

Our chiefs shall return no more— no more, 

Our chiefs shall return no more. 
Nor their brothers of war, who can show scar for scar, 

Like women their fates shall deplore, 

T.ike women their fates shall deplore. 

Five winters in hunting we'll spend — we'll spend. 

Five winters in hunting we'll spend. 
Till our youth, grown to men. we'll to war lead again. 

And our days, like our fathers, we'll end. 

And our days, like our fathers, we'll end. 

It is the custom of these tribes to go to war in the spring and summer, which are, 
not only comparatively seasons of leisure with them, but it is at these seasons that 
they are concealed and protected by the foliage of the forest, and can approach the 



THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO.'" 351 

enemy unseen. At these annual returns of warmth and vegetation, they also en- 
gage in festivities and dances, during which the events and exploits of past years 
are sung and recited; and while they derive fresh courage and stimulus to renewed 
exertions, the young, who are listeners, learn to emulate their fathers, and take 
their earliest lessons in the art of war. Nothing is done in the summer months 
in the way of hunting. The small furred animals are changing their pelt, which is 
out of season. The doe retires with her fawns, from the plains and open grounds, 
into thick woods. It is the general season of reproduction, and the red man, for 
a time, intermits his war on the animal creation to resume it against man. 

As the autumn approaches, he prepares for his fall hunts, by retiring from the 
outskirts of the settlements, and from the open lakes, shores, and streams, which 
have been the scenes of his summer festivities, and proceeds, after a short prepara- 
tory hunt, to his wintering grounds. This round of hunting, and of festivity and 
war, fills up the year; all the tribes conform in these general customs. There 
are no war parties raised in the winter. This season is exclusively devoted to 
securing the means of their subsistence and clothing, by seeking the valuable skins, 
which are to purchase their clothing and their ammunition, traps, and arms. 

The hunting grounds of the chief, whose life we are considering, extended along 
the southern shores of Lake Superior, from the Montreal river to the inlet of the 
Misacoda or Burntwood river of Fond du Lac. If he ascended the one, he usually 
made the wide circuit indicated, and came out at the other. He often penetrated 
by a central route up the Maskigo. This is a region still abounding, but less so 
than formerly, in the bear, moose, beaver, otter, martin, and muskrat. Among the 
smaller animals are also to be noticed the mink, lynx, hare, porcupine, and part- 
ridge, and towards its southern and western limits, the Virginia deer. In this 
ample area, the La Points or Chagoimegon Indians hunted. It is a rule of the 
chase that each hunter has a poi'tion of the country assigned to him, on which 
he alone may hunt; and there are conventional laws which decide all questions of 
right and priority in starting and killing game. In these questions the chief 
exercises a proper authority, and it is thus in the power of one of these forest gov- 
ernors and magistrates, where they happen to be men of sound sense, judgment, 
and manly independence, to make themselves felt and known, and to become 
true benefactors to their tribes. And such chiefs create an impression upon their 
followers, and leave a reputation behind them, which is of more value than their 
achievements in war. 

Wabojeeg excelled in both characters; he was equally popular as a civil ruler and 
a war chief; and while he administered justice to his people, he was an expert 
hunter, and made due and ample provision for his family. He usually gleaned in 
a season, by his traps and carbine, four packs of mixed furs, the avails of which 
were ample to provide clothing for all the members oi his lodge circle, as well as 
to renew his supply of ammunition and other essential articles. 

On one occasion he had a singular contest with a moose. He had gone out one 
morning early to set martin traps. He had set about 40, and was returning to his 
lodge, when he unexpectedly encountered a large moose, in his path, which mani- 
fested a disposition to attack him. Being unarmed, and having nothing but a 
knife and small hatchet, which he carried to make his traps, he tried to avoid it. 
But the animal came towards him in a furious manner. He took shelter behind a 
tree, shifting his position from tree to tree, retreating. At length, as he fled, he 
picked up a pole, and quickly untying his moccasin strings, he bound his knife to 
the end of the pole. He then placed himself in a favorable position, behind a 
tree, and when the moose came up stabbed him several times in the throat and 
breast. At last, the animal exhausted with the loss of blood, fell. He then dls- 



352 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 

patched him, and cut out his tongue to carry home to his lodge as a trophy of 
victory. When they went back to the spot for the carcass they found the snow 
trampled down in a wide circle, and copiously sprinkled with blood, which gave it 
the appearance of a battlefield. It proved to be a male of uncommon size. 

The domestic history of a native chief can seldom be obtained. In the present 
instance the facts that follow may be regarded with interest, as having been ob- 
tained from residents of Chagoimegon, or from his descendants. He did not take 
a wife till about the a^e of 30, and he then married a widow, by whom he had one 
son. He had obtained early notoriety as a warrior, which perhaps absorbed his 
attention. What causes there were to render this union unsatisfactory, or whether 
there were any, is not known; but after the lapse of two years he married a girl 
of 14, of the totem of the bear, by whom he had a family of six children. He is 
represented as of a temper and manners affectionate and forbearing. He evinced 
thoughtfulness and diligence in the management of his affairs, and the order and 
disposition of his lodge. When the hunting season was over, he employed his 
leisure moments in adding to the comforts of his lodge. His lodge was of an ob- 
long shape, ten fathoms long, and made by setting two rows of posts firmly in the 
ground, and sheathing the sides and roof with the smooth bark of the birch. From 
the center rose a post crowned with the carved figure of an owl, which he had 
probably selected as a bird of good omen, for it was neither his own nor his wife's 
totem. This figure was so placed that it turned with the wind, and answered the 
purpose of a weathercock. 

In person Wabojeeg was tall, being six feet six inches, erect in carriage and of 
slender make. He possessed a commanding countenance, united to ease and dig- 
nity of manners. He was a ready and fluent speaker, and conducted personally the 
negotiations with the Fox and Sioux nations. It was perhaps 20 years after the 
battle on the St. Croix, which established the Chippewa boundary in that quarter, 
and while his children were still young, that there came to his village, in the 
capacity of a trader, a young gentleman of a respectable family in the north of Ire- 
land, who formed an exalted notion of his character, bearing, and warlike exploits. 
This visit, and his consequent residence on the lake, during the winter, became 
an important era to the chief, and has linked his name and memory with numerous 
persons in civilized life. Mr. Johnston asked the northern chief for his youngest 
daughter. "Englishman," he replied, "my daughter is yet young, and you cannot 
take her as white men have so often taken our daughters. It will be time enough 
to think of complying with your request when you return again to this lake in the 
summer. My daughter is my favorite child, and I cannot part with her, unless you 
will promise to acknowledge her by such ceremonies as white men use. You must 
ever keep her, and never forsake her." On this basis a union was formed, a union, 
it may be said, between the Erse and Algonquin races — and it was faithfully 
adhered to, till his death, a period of 37 years. 

Wabojeeg had impaired his health in the numerous war parties which he con- 
ducted across the wide summit which separated Ms hunting grounds from the 
Mississippi valley. A slender frame, under a life of incessant exertion, brought on 
a premature decay. Consumption revealed itself at a comparatively early age, and 
he fell before this insidious disease, in a few years, at the early age of about 45. 
He died in 1793 at his native village of Chagoimegon. 

The incident which has been named did not fail to make the forest chieftain 
acquainted with the leading truth of Christianity, in the revelation it makes of a 
Saviour for all races. On the contrary, it is a truth which was brought to his 
knowledire and explained. It is, of course, not known with what pai-tieular effects. 
As he saw his end approaching, he requested that his body might not be buried out 




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THE HISTORIC JOHNSTON FAMILY OF THE "SOO." 353 

of sight, but placed, according to a custom prevalent in the remoter bands of this 
tribe, on a form supported by posts, or a scaffold. This trait is, perhaps, natural 
to the hunter state. 

My friends when my spirit is fled-is fled, 

My friends when my spirit is fied, 
Ah, put me not bound, in the dark and cold ground, 

Where light shall no longer be shed— be shed. 

Where daylight no more shall shall be shed. 

But lay me up scaffolded high— all high. 

Chiefs lay me up scaffolded high. 
Where my tribe shall still say, as they point to my clay. 

He ne'er from the foe sought to fly— to fly. 

He ne'er trom the foe sought to fly. 

And children, who play on the shore— the shore. 

And children \s-ho play on the shore, 
As the war dance they beat, my name shall repeat, 

And the fate of their chieftain deplore -deplore. 

And the fate of their chieftain deplore. 
45 



354 ANNUAL MEETING, 1902. 



THE EARLY FLORA AND FAUNA OF MICHIGAN. 



BY CHARLES S. WHEELER.* 



Michigan, from the Indian words meaning Lake Country, is peculiarly 
situated within the Avaters of the great lakes in two peninsulas. The 
lower peninsula opening to the south stretches from north to south 277 
miles, and from east to west 259 miles; the upper peninsula opening to the 
west stretches from east to west 318 miles, varying in width from 30 to 1G4 
miles. The whole State, with the exception of a few small prairies in the 
southwestern part of the lower peninsula, belongs to the Great Atlantic 
forest region. Our territory is situated about midway between the sea- 
board and the giea\ Mississippi valley, and consequently in its flora and 
fauna are found representatives of both these regions. In the southern 
and western parts of the lower peninsula are found representatives of the 
plants and animals of the middle Mississippi valley mingling with those 
of the Atlantic coast region; while in the northern part of the lower pen- 
insula and in the eastern part of the upper peninsula, the plants 
and animals partake largely of northern New England and Canadian 
types. The great middle portion of /the lower peninsula has mixed flora 
and fauna, containing representatives of the northwestern and south- 
western regions mingling together, forming a great transition region ; 
while in the northwestern papt of the upper peninsula come down to our 
borders many representati;i4s of the great northwest territories of the 
Dominion of Canada. -■' 

The comparatively 1^ elevation of the land surface above the sea, and 
the absence of mountain ranges in our State, makes the presence of Alpine 
plants and animalJ^ very infrequent, or even impossible, so that our plants 
and animals bdong to three floral and faunal regions, the boreal or 
northern forms, the transition, and the southern forms. Probably no por- 
tion of. the northeastern United States had originally such a rich and 
varied ij<3ra and fauna as our own State of Michigan. 

Th^first white men to visit our borders were French Jesuits. These 
and devoted explorers are said to have visited the site\)f Detroit 

y as 1610, and the settlement at Sault de Ste. Marie wh^ begun 

1 '. . i* 

♦Charles S. Wheeler, B. S., was born in Mexico, N. T., 1842. In 1861 he enlisted i\ Com- 
pany B, 7th N. Y. Cavalry, serving until discharged in 1863. He began the study of 
medicine at the University of Michigan in 1866, and from '67 to '89 he conducted a drug 
and book store in Ionia, Midi., when he became Instructor in Botany at the Michigan 
Agricultural College. In 1891 he received a degree of B. ,S. from the College, and in 1896 
was made Assistant Professor of Botany. In 1902 he was placed in charge of the 
Economic Gardens at "Washington, D. C. Prof. Wheeler is particularly well versed in the 
l>!ap,t lore of Michigan. 





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